Instinct
by Chiyala
Summary: Natsu doesn't know a thing about sex. When he's forced to sleep in one bed with Gray on a mission, something is bound to happen. Warning: Tartaros-Arc spoilers! Set after Tartaros-Arc.
1. Innocent

Note: "Onsen" is a hot spring.

Author's note: I published this fic first on Archive Of Our Own (AO3) under the same name. It has 9 chapters so far and I'm just re-uploading it here. I'm still having trouble with the editing system, so please tell me (in the review or a private message) if you find any kind of mistakes! Chapters 1-6 are not beta-read, so _please,_ if you find mistakes (spelling/incorrect grammar/incorrect use of words etc.), _tell me_.

Please review/follow/fave if you liked it! Things like these make the author happy and will have a positive influence on the writing/update speed!

My tumblr name is: Chiyala

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Innocent**

For an unknown reason Natsu was being gloomy and unsettled lately. He was tense around his guild mates, seemed to be loaded and lost it far more quickly than he used to. But what was most concerning of all was the fact that he was always taking it out on Gray. Not that it was surprising to see them fighting over something small, but never before had they fought as often as they did now.

At first, nobody gave special attention to their brawls, as it was fairly normal. It took a few days for people to start growing alert of Natsu's odd behavior. Laxus and Gajeel and some others purposely tried to pick fights with Natsu, but to everybody's surprise Natsu would always just shout at them to 'leave him for fuck's sake alone'. Sincerely concerned after those incidents, everyone was wondering what the reason of Natsu's weird behavior could be and how they could bring back the normal Natsu, who brightened their moods by carefree smiles and stupid pranks. Not even Happy could manage to get more than a half-hearted smile out of him. All of their efforts were useless, either Natsu didn't even notice them or they just annoyed him even further, resulting in him taking out his anger on Gray.

No wonder these events took their toll on Gray. He looked exhausted and utterly annoyed by the constant fighting, always earning sympathetic glances from his guild mates.

Everyone was thinking hard on a solution, but it wasn't until two weeks after all of it had started that Makarov called Erza and Lucy to his office.

* * *

When the two girls knocked on the door to his office, they heard Makarov's voice from inside.

"Come in."

Lucy darted a quick look over at Natsu, who was sitting alone, stiff like a rock, obviously too busy with his own thoughts to notice anything around him, before entering the office. They closed the door behind them before turning around to face their master. He was looking at them with a stern face, motioning them to sit down. He began speaking with a seriously concerned voice.

"I am sure you already suspect what the reason for this meeting is…"

"Natsu", Lucy mused. Makarov nodded briefly.

"I am not sure what the reason of Natsu's behavior is, but I think it's got something to do with Gray. Maybe these two have some issues they should urgently sort out. Being as stubborn as they are, there is no way they will ever approach each other other than for fighting. I want you two to create a situation where they'll have no other choice than to talk with each other about whatever their... or maybe only Natsu's problem might be."

Lucy and Erza stared at the Master in disbelief, as if he had just come from the moon, wearing a bikini and a bathing ring, announcing they would have to learn how to dance hula hoop with it.

"N- Natsu and Gray… _seriously talking about their problems_? I really can't imagine that happening..." the blonde mage stated.

"Natsu is stubborn, but he is not stupid… Well, at least not as stupid as to ignore this problem forever. Gray is, of course, also aware of Natu's odd behavior. He knows he can't keep it up forever. Sometimes when Natsu is lost in his own thoughts, Gray stares at him so intensely, you can practically feel his brain working on a solution. They just need a shove in the right direction."

"A shove, huh? They sure need a brutal shove." Erza's eyes were glistening with viciousness.

"Feel free to do whatever you find necessary to make them talk with each other. As long as it helps them getting over this situation."

"And what if it has nothing to do with Gray? What if Natsu just has some private issues that aren't related with Gray by all means?", Lucy wanted to know.

"Then Gray could use the chance to have a serious talk with Natsu about venting his rage on him. He's obviously worn out."

Being entrusted with this special mission, Erza was on fire, excited to kick some asses and help Natsu get over whatever his issues might be.

"Leave it to us, master! We'll make them talk! Let's go, Lucy, I already have a plan."

Before Lucy could even react, she was dragged out of the Master's office, out of the guild hall and to her home. She didn't wonder anymore why everybody close to her thought they could come and go whenever they wanted.

* * *

"WHAT? You're _not_ making me sleep in the same bed as this flame-brain!"

They just arrived at the destination of their current mission, Natsu was still feeling sick from the train ride and now they were told that they had only two rooms for the four of them with one bed each, because it was the peak season of the Onsen the client owned. Like hell Gray would give up so easily.

"You _are_ going to sleep in one bed with Natsu, like you have done before so many times before. Plus you two will _not_ fight with each other in any way. If I just hear you two arguing, I will come and give you hell so that the both of you will not even be able to crawl any more. And if you dare to destroy anything while our stay here, I swear I'll make you pay for it. Are. We. Clear?"

Okay. So maybe he _was_ going to giving up easily. But weighing Erza's rage against sleeping in one bed with Natsu... The last was more bearable, if not even pleasing...

Gray quickly grabbed one of the two keys Titania was holding, dragging the still unresponsive Dragon Slayer behind him as he fled to their room. Happy wanted to follow them, but was caught by the red haired mage.

"You stay with us."

"A- aye sir!"

* * *

After having locked the door behind them, Gray sighed and let himself relax a bit. He was tense enough these days even without Erza running berserk. But he would still have to deal with a furious dragon. He sighed again heavily and turned around to face Natsu, who still looked numbed. Gray decided to take the chance.

"Natsu. I know it's probably hard for you, but could you please just this once keep your shit together and try not to fight me every waking hour? I think we've fought quite enough the last weeks. Please… I don't want Erza to beat the shit out of us."

Instead of throwing a ruckus, Natsu surprisingly dropped his head and spoke gently. Maybe he was still a bit sick from the train ride.

"I'm sorry, Gray. I don't know what's gotten into me."

"So you really _did_ notice your change."

"I'm not stupid, you freezing bastard! _Of course_ I noticed!"

Without even realizing it, Natsu had taken up a fighting stance; flames shot out of his fists and surrounded them, ready to be punched into his rival's stomach. Gray took a defensive stance, just in case the Dragon Slayer would attack, but he was not at all in the mood for fighting.

"Calm down, _please_! Remember what Erza said? No argument, no fighting!"

When Natsu noticed what he had instinctively done, he cursed, immediately dissolving the flames around his fists and began busying himself with unpacking his clothes and storing them in the shelves.

The mission would not be difficult, but long. The owner of the Onsen had asked them to help her building an additional hotel, because this one was obviously too small for the peak season. The reward was high, but no more than four mages were allowed to go on the mission, and now they knew why. Two fucking rooms with one bed each. If it wasn't for the high reward, Gray would have quitted right away after hearing the circumstances. But after Tartaros had destroyed nearly everything they possessed, he was out of money and he needed to regain his savings.

* * *

They hadn't spoken a word while preparing their room and after they finished, the two mages stood in awkward silence, eyeing the bed with furrowed brows. Gray cleared his throat.

"At least it's huge, so we have enough space to sleep. I'll take the right side."

Without waiting for Natsu's answer, he shed his clothes, tossed them on the nightstand on the right side of the bed and left for the bathroom. It was already late evening, so they would get ready for bed and sleep. The mission would start on the next morning.

With Gray gone to the bathroom, Natsu released a breath he hadn't noticed he'd been holding. Again there was this strong feeling he'd been feeling since that day. He tried to fight it down, to bury it deep inside of him, but it burned inside him like fire, stronger than anything he'd ever felt before. It was impossible to ignore and hard not to act on it when it spread throughout his body, making it impossible hot, like he had a fever. His hands would always prickle and he'd want to punch Gray. It felt like he needed to release the intense power he felt rolling through him. But what he didn't understand was why the feeling didn't go away even after he'd fought with Gray, leaving over only little power. He sighed. Natsu didn't know what to do anymore, didn't know where this feeling came from or what it was supposed to mean, but for now he decided he would try not to fight with Gray, partly because he dreaded Erza's rage, but also because he knew by now that fighting with his rival would do nothing more than leave an unsettling feeling behind.

He quickly changed into his pajamas, lying down on his side of the bed, which was the one closer to the bathroom, waiting for the ice mage to finish getting ready for the night.

When Gray re-emerged from the bathroom, he went straight to bed, avoiding looking at Natsu, who got up immediately and went to the bathroom.

Gray would have to share a bed with him for as long as their mission would take. The last two weeks had been especially hard on him. It had always been hard, being in love with his rival and best friend. Yeah. Love. He was in love. Crazy in love with Natsu. Had been since long before he could even understand what it meant to be in love in a non-platonic and not family-related way. After he had first hit upon the idea that he could possibly be romantically in love with Natsu, he'd been in denial for years. He just couldn't admit that he had fallen in love with a guy, especially not _this_ guy, not this stupid flame-brain he'd always brawl with. When his jealousy of Lisanna threatened to get the best of him and he nearly hit her for something that was entirely not her fault, he finally admitted to himself that he was deeply in love with his stupid best friend. Since that time he'd always struggled to keep it a secret, finding it hard to control all these bottled-up feelings.

As if all that hadn't been already enough, Natsu suddenly started to act strange after Tartaros was defeated. Gray's father had given him the power of a Devil Slayer, Natsu had met his father only to lose him again permanently.

After all the fights were over, Natsu had challenged him to test his new strength, maybe also to get over the loss of his father. It had been a serious fight until both of them had exhausted all of their magic power. After their fight they'd lain sprawled out next to each other on the grass, too powerless to even move a finger. After a while, they'd turned their heads to face each other, intending to mock. But when their eyes had met, Natsu's eyes had widened as if in shock. Gray hadn't known how to react... So he'd done nothing. They'd just looked in each other's eyes for what felt like an eternity, when eventually Natsu had let out a shaking breath. Gray had wanted to ask him what was wrong but the fire mage had suddenly jumped to his feet and ran away as fast as he could. Gray was left behind confused as hell, so he'd wanted to ask Natsu about that incident the next time they would meet each other. It turned out he had neither the courage nor the chance to talk to his best friend seriously. From that point on, Natsu had only talked to him to pick a fight, which happened far too often for his liking. Sleepless nights thinking about what he might have done wrong, pondering about their relationship, worrying if he had any chance to make it right again and the constant fighting with the Dragon Slayer left him utterly exhausted and exasperated. He could've snapped any second.

The movement of the mattress and the sudden darkness brought him back to the present. Natsu was lying next to him, snuggling down in his blanket. Gray swallowed.

"Good night, Gray."

"Good night, Natsu."

Gray was so nervous he felt like his heart would jump out of his chest any second. How could he possibly fall asleep lying next to the person who was the reason for his insomnia? He tried to calm himself, told himself to breathe evenly. After some minutes he really managed to calm down a bit, even if his mind was still spinning. He and Natsu hadn't fought for a day already, since the train ride had left the Dragon Slayer unable to fight and now… something seemed to have changed. He'd even apologized earlier. Maybe he felt truly sorry for his misbehavior the past two weeks? Believing that Natsu regretted what he did calmed him even more. Slowly he drifted off in a deep and relaxing sleep he so much needed after two weeks of insomnia.

* * *

"Ngh... ahhh..."

Still on the verge of sleeping, Gray didn't really notice where these sounds were coming from. He thought he was again having a wet dream of Natsu, but this seemed to be more real. Plus something under him was moving... he was feeling as if he was on a boat that was moving slightly up and down because of waves. The moans didn't stop, if anything they became louder. Slowly Gray came to himself, more and more realizing that this wasn't one of his dreams.

Natsu was really moaning, right next to him. He was also moving in a way he couldn't see in the dark. Natsu was still under the blanket; he could tell from the movement of said blanket. Gray was too afraid to move, too afraid to do more than just open his eyes and stare at the ceiling. His heart rate increased momentarily.

"Haaaaaaahhh... nnnhhh..."

If it wasn't for the loud moans, Gray was sure the Dragon Slayer would have heard his heartbeat by now, as his heart was beating so incredibly fast and strong against his ribcage, there was no chance it would have gone unnoticed by even a normal person without the sharp senses of a Dragon Slayer. Heat crept into every part of his body, blood shot to the middle and he felt his cock grow hard. _Crap._

"Did you- ahh... think I would- nnnhhh... wouldn't notice you've woken up? Haaaahhh..."

Gray's eyes widened in shock. Natsu had noticed? But he was still moaning like he was having the best sex of his life? That didn't fit! Something must've been wrong. Did Natsu moan because of something else? Was he in pain? Serious pain judging by his voice? He turned to Natsu, but could figure out only a silhouette in the semi-darkness.

"Natsu, are you okay? Are you in pain?"

He was worried, but somehow the movements didn't fit with somebody being in pain. It looked like Natsu was masturbating right next to him.

"Nooo... this is the best... ahhh... I've ever felt..."

So he really _was_ masturbating. He couldn't believe it. Was he having a dream that just felt too real? If it really was a dream, he could do whatever he wanted, right? So he sat up, fully facing Natsu, leaning over him, intending to kiss him. Suddenly Natsu flinched, stopping his act.

"Oy, popsicle, what do you think you're doing?"

So it _wasn't_ a dream.

"Bastard. Get away from me!"

But Gray didn't want to get away from Natsu just yet, he was too confused and he wanted answers.

"What the hell were you just doing?"

"I don't know, who cares? It felt damn good. Could you please get your face away from me so I can continue?"

"Con- _continue_?"

"What's your problem, you are just disturbing me, go away! Go back to sl-"

"As if I could fall back asleep after hearing and seeing you do _that_!"

Natsu's expression changed from annoyed to curious. He really was a damn good actor... Why the hell was he doing this?

"You know this?"

"Of course, idiot... you were touching yourself..."

"Yeah. Did you ever do this?"

"Quit kidding me! That's not funny, you idiot!"

"B- but I'm not joking..."

Natsu's voice sounded honest and kind of sad. How could he lie with such a serious voice? Or if he didn't lie, how the hell could he not know what masturbating was? Gray's breath was trembling heavily, partly of anger, partly of nervousness. He turned on the small lamp on his bedside table, then sat cross-legged on his side of the bed, facing Natsu, who was hiding everything except for his head under the blanket, a heavy blush on his beautiful face. He was cuter with that blush on his face than Gray could ever have imagined and when their eyes met, the world stopped moving for a second. His heart skipped a beat, only to beat much heavier than it had before. Natsu would definitely notice that. Trying to regain his composure, Gray started to speak.

"So... you don't know what you did just now?"

He got a quick head-shaking and a curious look from Natsu as answer. He was starting to believe that this was not for show.

"Oh my... Did Igneel never teach you anything about... uh... love?"

"Love is a strong feeling you feel for someone you want to be together with for the rest of your life."

Gray blushed heavily at this. Damn right he was. How could he possibly be so innocent?

"Y- yeah... And... uh... Did he teach you also about what you do when you're in love?"

"Igneel said I will learn everything else when the time has come. He said it's like birds when they learn how to fly. Their mother will push them out of the nest and while falling, their instincts will teach them how to fly. It will be the same for me. My instincts will teach me when the time has come."

"So... how do you know when that time has come?" Gray was growing more nervous.

"Dunno... I will just know it. Because then I will know everything about being in love."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. How the hell could he not have picked up something - _anything_ \- about sex and lovemaking in their guild?

"Oh my... you really don't know anything about sex?"

"I know that it's some kind of taboo to talk about and not for young people, because everybody who I asked about it just blushed and said I'm too young for that topic."

"Just when was that?"

"Right after I joined Fairy Tail..."

"And you never tried to ask again?"

"No, because Igneel said I don't need to ask, I would know by instinct when I found my special one... The one and only person I'll spend the rest of my life with... Igneel said it's fate."

Gray hadn't imagined that he could possibly become more nervous than he already was, but the words of the Dragon Slayer proved him wrong. He needed all his self-control not to start shivering too much and to try to keep his voice impassive - but he completely failed.

"So... you haven't found... uh... your 'special one' yet?", he uttered, too occupied not to jump out of the bed out of sheer nervousness to care about all the emotions in his voice.

"Uhm... I don't think so... If I had, I would already know everything I need to know..."

Gray's heart tightened painfully at that. Some small part of him had tried to make him believe that Natsu's change was because he finally noticed his undying love for Gray but just couldn't admit it. His best friend had just ridiculed that part of him, saying he wasn't in love. The ice mage wanted to hit himself for even considering this as a possible reason.

"Gray... My cock is still hard, what should I do about it?"

Gray chocked on his saliva and blushed. Something he seemed to be doing a lot since he woke up.

"So- sorry, Gray. Did I say something wrong?"

 _Oh. My. God. Don't lose your composure! Don't!_

"N- no... but... you should do this when you're alone."

"But we're alone..."

"Alone like 'only you and nobody else'."

"But it was never like this before... Now is the first time it became hard... Can I do this also while it's soft?"

"N- no that's not... possible..."

No. No no no, he shouldn't talk about this with Natsu. He gulped. But he still would. To help Natsu. Only to help him. Teach him what he doesn't know. Yeah. Only because of that.

"When you think of a naked woman's body, won't it... grow hard?"

"Why should it?"

"Then... maybe of a naked man's body?"

"No... No, I don't think so..."

"But... how the hell did it become hard now?"

"Dunno... I was just lying here, and you smell so good... and then my penis became hard... and I wondered why it became like this, so I was touching it through my pants and that felt so good, I couldn't stop touching. And then I tried different ways to find out which would be the best way... I noticed that moving my hand up and-"

"GOT IT! S- stop... just... stop talking..."

 _Fucking shit. Holy. Fucking. Shit._ He was so turned on. His dick was achingly hard, probably already leaking pre-cum. He was lost... Completely lost. Fuck. And he shouldn't be saying what he was about to say...

"You were touching only through your pants?"

"Ah, yes, pants and pajama trousers..."

He definitely should stop right here. But his filthy mouth was not willing to listen to him.

"It feels so much better if you touch your cock directly... Without pants and pajama..."

He shouldn't be doing this.

"Can I try that?"

 _Shit._ He. Should. Stop. Now. But his frigging body was not listening to his mind any longer. His cock ached to be touched so badly...

"It's not as if I could do anything to stop you..."

"That's a yes!"

He saw Natsu shifting under the blankets and could imagine him pulling his pajama and pants down, so that he could grab his cock without textile. Then Natsu lay still and he could picture his best friend's hand cup his cock and-

"Ahhhhh..."

Gray blushed crimson and quickly turned away from Natsu. Damn. Why did the Dragon Slayer have to make such sexy sounds? Gray was hard as a rock and it was physically hurting not to touch himself. But what could he do? Touching himself like Natsu did was too embarrassing. On the other hand Natsu was doing the exact same thing. _Because you told him to, you pervert._ It was Natsu's first time... First time ever having a hard-on and there he was abusing his innocence. But he couldn't find it in himself to stop him. Not anymore. Too late. Not when he was this horny.

"Hnggghhh... So good... Graaaay!"

He was calling his name! A new wave of heat rolled through his body, burned every bit of doubts to ashes and left only the too strong feeling of desire and lust. But he wouldn't do anything to Natsu. He wouldn't touch him. Natsu told him to stay away, so he would do that. He would wait.

"Haaaah... oh my god... this is... so incredibly... good... Ahh, Graaay! Gray! I feel like... uhh... I need to pee..."

Gray nearly came by only listening to that voice, without even having to touch himself. He gathered all his self-control not to give in to his desire to cup his cock and finish with a few quick strokes.

"That's not pee... believe me... just release it"

"Nooo... I won't pee... in our bed...!"

"It's not pee... It's called sperm... or cum... it comes out of your cock, too, so it just feels like you need to pee..."

"Really? You're not... ahhh... trying to embarrass me or something?"

"Hell, as if I would let you pee in our bed, stupid flame-brain... But you should take care not to spoil your blanket or clothes with your sperm... uh... you could just come on your bare chest and stomach..."

"Y- you mean I should remove the blanket and my pajama top?"

"Would be better..."

He heard Natsu shifting, removing the blanket, taking off his pajama shirt... That meant he was completely naked now! And without blanket! If he just looked in Natsu's direction, he could see-

"Aaahhhhhh..."

Gray closed his eyes and pushed his flat hands on them, so that he wouldn't be tempted to just turn his head and look at Natsu's naked body and his hard cock, which was probably leaking pre-cum-

"Haaahhh... so hot... Gray... I can't... hold it... anymore...!"

"It's okay, just release it-"

"Graaaaaaaaayyyyyy!"

Natsu's body was shaking heavily while his orgasm rolled over him, making the mattress tremble with his movements. Again Gray nearly came just by hearing this sexy voice _which was calling his name while coming_ and feeling the movement of the mattress, but managed to control himself before anything could happen. He heard the heavy panting of his best friend slowly become steadier as his orgasm wore out.

"Ewww... it's white and... sticky... and it stinks!"

"Uh... yeah... you should wipe it off..."

"With what?"

"A tissue... or toilet paper."

"I don't have any tissue or toilet paper here. And if I stand up, this liquid will drop to the floor or the bed... Please give me something!"

Fuck. _Think, Gray, think!_ Which would be the least awkward solution? Did he have any tissue nearby? Something he could blindly toss to Natsu? He didn't want to go to the bathroom to fetch toilet paper as he'd have to round the bed for that, which meant he would have to look somewhere in the direction of the pink-haired Dragon Slayer plus his erection would be seen if he stood up. He vaguely remembered putting tissues in a side pocket of his travel bag some months ago... Luckily he had put his empty travel bag in the cupboard right next to his side of the bed, so all he needed to do was crawl out of bed, not look at Natsu while doing that, grab his bag, search it for the tissues and get back on the bed _without looking at Natsu._ Luckily the tissues were really there, so he picked them up and closed his eyes, covering them with his free hand and crawled back on their bed. He held out the tissues to the general direction of his best friend. Natsu took them and started wiping himself. Gray quickly turned his back to the Dragon Slayer and even pulled his blanket over his head.

"You have already seen me naked sometimes, droopy-eyes. You don't need to act so strange."

"'am not..."

"You're acting like a shy cat, of course it's weird. I have never seen you like this."

"Shut up, finish cleaning up already and get dressed!"

"Will you quit acting strange then?"

Silence. Natsu sighed in defeat, cleaned up quickly and got dressed. When he lay in bed again, an awkward silence built up between them. Gray's mind was spiraling with thoughts about the pink-haired mage, so many questions in his head, so many things he needed to sort out. And there was this voice... The voice in his head telling him over and over again that he had abused the Dragon Slayer for his own pleasure. He knew it was true, he was feeling bad about it but at the same time he was not. Natsu had wanted it so badly that he had been nearly begging Gray to allow him to masturbate. But there were some things the ice mage needed to make clear before they would meet their friends again the next day. He could wallow in self-loathing later.

"Natsu... could you promise me something?", he whispered, head still hidden under his blanket. Only a Dragon Slayer would have been able to hear him.

"You are scaring me, you know? Why do you keep hiding under your blanket? If you felt uncomfortable while... you know... Anyway, it's over now and if you want, then let's just pretend it never happened, if it makes you feel better."

Gray shoved his blanket aside at that and stared right into the eyes of his best friend.

"Really? Would you do that for me?"

Natsu let out a chuckle, amused about how Gray could change from being shy into being so openly positive. He liked this attitude way better.

"Yeah. I can never forget it though. But I guess pretending it didn't happen is okay for me."

"Promise!"

"Okay, okay, I promise..."

" You mustn't say anything, especially to Erza or Lucy... or Happy... Huh? Where's Happy by the way?"

"Erza made him stay with them."

"Just when did that happen?"

"While you were busy fleeing from Erza and dragging me along."

"Eh? I didn't notice... Why does he stay with the girls?"

"They want to give us time alone to talk about 'our problems' or rather, my problems."

The face Gray made after hearing these words was priceless. Natsu had never seen his friend as dumbfounded as he was now. He laughed and nearly made fun of him out of habit, but somehow he wasn't in the mood for it. He decided to show mercy and just explained the situation to the ice mage.

"It's our Master's doing. He thought the wooden door between the guild hall and his office would be enough to prevent me from hearing what they said. He asked Erza and Lucy to create a situation where the two of us would be forced to talk about my issues, because he thinks it's got something to do with you... Well, you know why... So Erza made this plan, I don't know how far it goes, if they made this whole mission up by themselves or if it just happened to come in handy and they decided to take the chance... Whatever... We're supposed to talk things over and go back to our old selves... So of course Happy needs to stay with the girls."

Gray had gotten stiffer and stiffer while Natsu was talking and he wondered if he had said something wrong. His best friend was keeping his gaze locked on his hands. Natsu's chest clenched painfully at the thought that he had made his best friend sad and immediately after that wondered why it even bothered him so much lately. His brain was working with high speed on a solution that would cheer the dark haired mage up, but before he could come up with something, Gray started talking quietly.

"So... the real purpose of this mission is to get you back to normal...?"

"Guess so... But we're still building that fucking hotel!"

Natsu was done talking about this topic, he kind of feared what was about to come if he didn't interrupt their talk. He himself didn't even know the reason why he had suddenly changed so much, let alone what exactly had changed so how should he be able to talk about it? It made him nervous, he didn't even know what had made him entrust Gray everything he had told him already.

"I'll sleep now. Good night, Gray."

Without waiting for an answer he turned his back to the dark haired mage and hoped that he would leave it at this. After a few moments he noticed Gray shifting.

"Good night, Natsu..."

The voice of his best friend sounded so broken, he wanted to roll over and... and what? Tell him it's gonna be okay? He wanted to make Gray happy again, take away what was burdening him... But then again he would likely have to talk about this _feeling_ he couldn't comprehend. Even though he hadn't drunken any alcohol, he was starting to feel dizzy, like the world around him was turning, his thoughts starting to blur, becoming a haze of emotions. Slowly he was drifting off to sleep as weariness won over his confused mind.


	2. Truth or Dare

When the four mages and Happy met in the morning to receive their first task, Gray looked like a picture of misery, dark circles under his eyes, unnerved and not at all looking forward to what they would have to do. On the opposite and to everybody's surprise, Natsu was smiling wide and being positive, trying to cheer everyone up. When Happy flew to his embrace, telling him how Erza had bought him fish and how good it had tasted and that he wanted more of it, he was laughing loudly and telling his blue Exceed that he was sure he'd get more fish from Erza and Lucy the next days.

The two girls exchanged surprised glances; they didn't know what to think of this, if they should be happy that Natsu seemed to be back to his old self, or be sad because now Gray was being gloomy instead. Lucy subtly shook her head, showing the red haired mage that they should just watch and see what would happen. So neither of them commented on this situation, they just shrugged and started heading to their client's office.

The first task for the Fairy Tail mages was to log trees in a forest close to the town they were staying in, cut them in about same-sized parts and piling them up. To fulfil this task, Erza used Requip to summon many swords which cut through wood like it was made out of butter. Lucy summoned Taurus, used 'Star Dress: Taurus Form' on herself, ordered Taurus to give her an axe and then both of them were logging trees in a high pace. Gray used 'Ice Make: Axe' to summon many axes, which cut wood controlled by Gray's thoughts. Happy was busying himself with carrying all the wood to one location and piling them up.

Natsu was... a whole different story. He tried to log trees with his fire magic, forming it like a blade and cutting through it, but every time he tried, he just set the tree on fire. He couldn't eat his own flames, so there was no way he could put the fire out himself. If it wasn't for his frustrated yell and for Gray noticing what he had done and putting the flames out by his ice, he would have caused a forest fire. Out of pity, the ice mage formed another ice axe and gave it to him. Natsu eyed the axe warily, but still tried to use it, with the result that his body heat melted the icy handle in no time.

"Your ice axe sucks! I can't even hold it without melting it!" He shouted in frustration.

"That's your fault for having such warm hands!"

"Your ice usually withstands even my fire without problem, so my body temperature shouldn't cause it to melt."

Gray knew his friend was right, but he just couldn't focus on his magic while being around the fire Dragon Slayer, his mind and his feelings were too much in an uproar plus the lack of sleep of especially last night left his nerves tense.

"I guess I'm just too exhausted for this shit", he whispered to himself, but Natsu heard him anyway.

"Then you should take a brea-", Natsu began, but was interrupted by Lucy's high-pitched yell.

"NATSU! WATCH OUT!"

Before he knew what was happening, he was hit hard on the back of his head by the falling tree Lucy had just logged. But instead of burying Natsu under it, the tree broke apart where it had hit his head. All eyes were on him, everyone had stopped moving, preparing to give first aid to their friend if needed. Natsu didn't move for a few seconds. Then he suddenly shoved the trunk aside, made a fiery fist and jumped in Lucy's direction, ready to punch her.

"That freaking hurt!"

Everyone was relieved that the fire mage didn't seem to have suffered any severe damage, Lucy took a defensive stance and Taurus was positioning himself between the celestial mage and the furious Natsu, ready to protect Lucy from the heavy strike that was to come- when the Dragon Slayer abruptly came to a halt, his flames evaporating, staggering and searching for something that could give him stability, but he couldn't seem to find any.

Gray moved without thinking twice, running towards his best friend, catching him in his strong arms while the Dragon Slayer was tipping over, then carefully sitting down and bedding Natsu's head in his lap. The fire mage hadn't lost conscience, just seemed to be a bit dizzy, he was looking around a bit cluelessly. When he found the eyes of the ice mage, which were focusing on him with a worried look, he smiled faintly.

"That's gonna be a big bump, huh..."

Despite the situation, Gray's heart was racing. Their eyes were interlocked with each other's and if it hadn't been physically impossible to do so, he would have leaned down and kissed Natsu right then and there. He hadn't noticed the others approaching and nearly jumped at Erza's voice so close to him.

"Hey, you okay?"

"It hurts like hell..."

"You should take a rest and cool that spot where the tree hit you. Gray, take him to your room and take good care of him. You two take the rest of the day off, we'll cover for you."

Lucy gave him an encouraging nod and that was all it took for Gray to obey Erza's order, to carry Natsu princess-style - in spite of half-hearted complaints from the Dragon Slayer - back to their room.

When Happy tried to follow, Erza caught his tail.

"You still have some wood-carrying to do, or there will be no fish this evening!"

"Ayeeee Sir!"

* * *

As soon as they reached their room, Natsu demanded to be put down, face blushed heavily. They had passed so many people on their way back to the hotel; they had been staring at them, whispering something they believed he couldn't hear. Gray didn't seem to care or even notice their looks. It was kind of sweet and soothing, knowing his best friend cared for his health to a level where he didn't even care about what other people might think of him carrying a man around like a fucking princess. Then again, the ice mage had never really cared much about other people's opinions if they weren't a Fairy Tail mage.

Gray carried him to their bed and let Natsu down carefully on his side of the bed. The Dragon Slayer felt the cold feeling on the back of his head vanish and nearly complained as the pain slowly came back, when he heard his friend exhale a shaking breath and lying down on the right side of the bed.

"Sorry, but cooling your head until now without touching was difficult and I'm tired. You have the choice between me making you ice cubes you can use to cool your head... or I could make my hand cold-"

"I'll take your hand. I don't want ice cubes melting in my hair."

He heard Gray swallow hard, then felt the cool touch of a hand that was pushing its way between the back of his head and his pillow. He sighed contently, relaxed into the touch of this cold hand and closed his eyes. He concentrated on the scent of his best friend. He liked the prominent scent of pine trees and snowy hills on Gray. But his emotions seemed to be in chaos, as he could smell fear and nervousness but at the same time happiness, satisfaction and something else that overlapped everything else, but he couldn't pinpoint what it was. It was this special smell Gray always had on him. It was soothing and warm but it seemed to be so much stronger now. It bugged Natsu that he didn't know what this feeling was. He could just have asked but something was always holding him back.

He tried to push away the thought for now as thinking about it only made his head hurt. Maybe he had suffered greater damage from that damn tree than he had anticipated. The feeling of Gray's cold hand made him feel secure, easing his pain. He started to feel sleepy again; his body obviously needed all its energy to repair the damage of his head. Slowly he was sinking into a pleasant sleep, where he dreamed of cold hands embracing his body and holding it close.

* * *

When Gray had pushed his hand under Natsu's head, the feel of the soft hair and the warm scalp drove him nearly mad with desire, he had only barely been able to refrain from caressing the soft hair and skin, trying hard to ignore how good it felt to touch his best friend. It had been hard on him, his heart beating heavily and he barely managed to keep his breath even. After some time the Dragon Slayer seemed to have fallen asleep, his chest was moving up and down steadily and his face seemed to be relaxed. When Natsu babbled some unidentifiable syllable in his sleep, Gray couldn't help himself but smile at this.

Natsu really had fallen asleep with his head resting in Gray's hand. At this thought heat rolled through his body, making his stomach feel like there were a thousand butterflies inside. Encouraged by the knowledge that the Dragon Slayer really was asleep, he moved his hand a bit, enjoying the feeling of this incredibly soft hair he had craved to touch for so long. He didn't want to wake his best friend though, so he kept his moving to a minimum.

After some minutes of pure bliss the touching was causing, he felt tiredness washing over him, his body demanding the sleep he had been denied for too long. Shifting in what Gray thought to be a comfortable position, he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Natsu had woken up at about 4 p.m., wondering how long he had slept, as he hadn't paid attention to the clock when they had arrived at their room. He brought himself in an upright position and quickly wanted to scan the room around him, but the sleeping figure of his friend caught his eye immediately. His hand was slightly grasping the air, obviously searching for something that was missing. It was searching for his head, he noted, but when it couldn't find what it was searching for, Gray sighed sadly in his sleep, pulled his hand back to his body and shifted his position into something that looked far more comfortable than the one he had been in before. Now he was lying with his back on the mattress, left hand over his head and the right one on his stomach, his face turned towards Natsu. Before Natsu had woken up he had been laying awkwardly on his stretched out right arm, apparently trying to steady his right hand under the Dragon Slayer's head so that he wouldn't be able to move it in his sleep. His shoulder would certainly be giving him hell after he'd woken up.

Natsu couldn't tear his eyes away from the sleeping face of his best friend. He liked the peace and happiness the sleeping figure was radiating and he couldn't help himself but think _beautiful_. An invisible force was pulling Natsu towards Gray's face and he only noticed that he had moved when he already was so close to his friend that he could feel his breathing on his lips. He froze and closed his eyes, feeling his heart beat fast and hard against his ribcage. The feel of Gray's breath against his sensitive skin caused a tingling sensation not only on his face but also in his heart. It felt so right and it made him incredibly happy. He never wanted it to go away.

He just wanted to stay like this forever- but then he heard footsteps coming closer. He could tell they belonged to Lucy and Erza and they were heading to his room. He quickly sat upright again, tried to slow down his pulse as well as his panting breath. He quickly went to the door, slipping out of the hotel room as quietly as he could and greeted the two approaching girls and Happy with a wide smile when they reached him, trying hard to hide the turmoil that was raging inside him.

"Yo, Happy, Lucy, Erza! What's up?"

Happy landed with a heavy sigh on Natsu's shoulder. Poor exceed, he must have worked so hard.

"Natsu, you look much better already. How's your head?" Lucy asked with a smile.

 _Huh? Head? I've completely forgotten about that..._

"A- ahh... yeah, feels completely healed."

He earned a skeptical look from Erza.

"You sure look better, but you're acting strange. Are you hiding something in that hotel room? And did you catch a fever? Your face is red."

Natsu gulped. Why couldn't he hide anything from Erza?

"Gray is sleeping, I didn't want to wake him up and so I thought we should talk on the corridor."

Erza raised her eyebrow even higher.

"Ooh? How thoughtful of you."

"He just... looked so tired earlier, so I thought..." He cleared his throat. "What did you come here for anyway?"

Erza opened her mouth to mock him some more, but Lucy had mercy on him and intervened by cutting Erza off before she even had the chance to say a word.

"We got some money in advance, so we decided we'd use a bit of it to make barbecue. Our client has a cozy garden near the forest, the one we saw on our way to work today. She offered us to use it if we promised not to leave trash behind. So we already bought everything for a barbecue and brought it there and now we came to pick you and Gray up."

"Nice idea! You can already go; we'll come as soon as Gray wakes up."

Erza wanted to say something, but was cut off by Lucy again.

"Okay, but please don't come later than 6 p.m.! Happy, let's go!"

With that, Lucy grabbed Happy and spun Erza around, pushing her away from Natsu until they were out of sight. Natsu was staring at the empty space where his friends had been just a few seconds ago and tried hard to believe what had just happened. Who would have thought that Lucy had this kind of courage, rebelling against Erza. Shaking his head in disbelief, he pushed himself back into the hotel room, making as little noise as possible and sat down on his side of the bed.

This time he didn't allow himself to stare at Gray's sleeping face for more than a few seconds, as the dark haired mage could wake up any second and he didn't want to be caught staring or - _god forbid_ \- hovering a few centimeters before Gray's face.

It was 5 p.m. when Gray started to stir, mumbling something incomprehensible and stretching his limbs. Despite his resolution not to stare, Natsu couldn't help but watch the cute process of his best friend waking up.

* * *

When Gray opened his eyes only slightly, still half sleeping, he was met with the view of Natsu beaming happily at him. He jolted awake and sat upright quickly, feeling a sharp pain in his right shoulder and upper arm as he did so. He let out a hiss.

"Good morning, princess. Did you sleep well?"

Natsu was beaming even wider at him now. _Princess?_ He blushed heavily, cleared his throat and hoped his voice wouldn't sound too hoarse.

"M- morning. How long did I sleep?"

"About one hour longer than me. Come on, get up. The girls are waiting for us."

Thankful for something other to do than looking in the eyes of the pink haired mage he got out of bed, wondering just when he had stripped out of his shirt, grabbed his shirt from his nightstand and tried to get dressed again. When he lifted his arms to slip into his shirt, his right shoulder ached so much he needed to lower his arms again. Not wanting to show weakness to his best friend, he took a deep breath and quickly slipped over his shirt.

* * *

When they arrived at the garden, they couldn't believe their eyes. Erza seemed to be already drunk, wielding an empty bottle of beer over her head to greet the two boys. As soon as Lucy noticed them approaching, she got up from the bench, started to set the table and bring food from the small house. Happy was sleeping peacefully on the end of the front bench. Natsu wondered just how much they had made him work today.

The garden really was nice and cozy. There was a fireplace with more than enough space to sit around, a big wooden table with two benches on each side, a small barbecue next to the back bench, a cottage with a refrigerator and a huge freezer and also a small kitchen inside.

Natsu volunteered on being responsible for the barbecue, Gray was taking care of their drinks, cooling them to the requested temperature before he handed them over to the others and Lucy was taking care of the rest. Erza had bought too much alcohol and she was constantly cheering her friends on to drink more. After they had finished eating and everybody had drunken two beers each - except Erza who had drunken five already - and had become a bit tipsy, Erza decided it was time to play 'Truth or Dare'. Nobody dared arguing with a drunken Erza and so they tidied up the table, tried to spin an empty bottle on the table, but then decided that it took too long for the bottle to stop spinning on the flat surface, so they moved to sit in a circle on the warm grass. Lucy was sitting on the left side of Erza and Gray on her right side. Hence Natsu was sitting between Lucy and Gray.

It was Erza's turn to start the game. She spun the bottle so hard it took a long time for it to stop and point on... Lucy.

"Truth or Dare?"

"Truth."

"Are you still a virgin?"

Lucy coughed hard and blushed heavily.

"N- no."

Erza's grin was evil and she urged Lucy to go on with the game. Lucy twisted the bottle and it stopped pointing at Gray.

"Truth or Dare?"

"Dare."

"Hmmm... let's see... make a headstand and hold it for one minute."

Erza was complaining loudly about Lucy being 'no fun', but seeing Gray struggling to accomplish this task was truly ridiculous. His sense of balance was off to a point where this task was impossible to solve. He cursed and said that this was mean, giving him such a task after he'd already drunken two beers. Erza was quick to invent a new rule as a punishment if somebody lied or couldn't fulfill his task: drink a shot. She had also bought different types of spirits.

Gray had decided on vodka and gulped it down at once, shaking his whole body due to the strong taste of alcohol.

When Gray spun the bottle, it pointed on himself, so he needed to spin it again because you couldn't give yourself a task or a question. It was pointing to Erza this time.

"Truth or-"

"Truth."

"Have you ever kissed Jellal?"

"Yes. My turn!"

Erza got to truth-or-dare Natsu, who decided on truth.

"Are you in love with somebody?"

 _What?_ Natsu's cheeks went pink, his heart rate doubling instantly, heat washing through his body. For all he knew he wasn't in love, but the reaction of his body made him doubt his conviction. He was thinking really hard about it, avoiding looking in Gray's direction by all means.

"I- I don't... really know." It was the most honest answer he could give at the moment.

"You're lying!"

"N- no, I really don't know..."

"Natsu, come on, your reaction shows that you are in love, seriously so, so stop lying to yourself."

He was staring in Erza's eyes in disbelief, trying to process what she had just said, trying to understand if it was true, if he really was in love, and if he was, with whom? _Gray, obviously._ No... No, this couldn't be true, he wasn't-

"Quit dreaming, just believe it already and spin the bottle. It's your turn, Natsu."

He did what he was told and the bottle stopped at... Gray. _Shit._ He didn't have the courage to look in the eyes of his best friend, so he just stared at his hands while talking.

"T- truth or Dare?"

"Truth."

 _Screw it! Just do it, everyone is asking shit like this!_ Gathering all his courage, he looked in Gray's eyes and asked his question.

"Are you in love?"

"Yes."

 _Oh god... Without hesitation..._ he felt dizzy, knowing Gray had already found his special one. He wondered who it was, felt fear creeping up his spine when he imagined Gray being in love with one of the girls or boys in their guild or _just anyone who wasn't Natsu._ He pictured Juvia kissing with her 'Gray-sama' and immediately regretted it; the thought alone made him want to punch Juvia badly if something like this ever happened... _I should stop thinking about something like this..._ Gray hadn't told them who his special one was, so there still was the chance that it was him... Igneel had said it was 'fate', so if he really was in love with Gray - which he wasn't - the two of them were bound to fall in love with each other, right? _Please, let it be me..._

When he snapped out of his thoughts, he noticed he had obviously missed at least one round, as Lucy's face was flushed dark red and she was spinning the bottle again. It was pointing on Gray.

"Truth or Dare?"

"Truth."

"Who are you in love with?"

The ice mage shifted nervously, shooting an angry glare at Lucy. Then he poured himself another shot of vodka and downed it at once. He grabbed the bottle and wanted to twist it again, when Erza's hand caught his.

"That doesn't count, Gray. It's Truth or Dare and you decided to say the truth so you have to answer it."

"I'd lie anyway, so I drank a shot, what's the problem? Do I need to tell you a lie to continue?"

Erza was gazing at him angrily, but then apparently noticed there was nothing she could do to force him to say the truth, so she just snorted, leaned back again and demanded to be given another beer. She should really have a drinking contest with Cana when they came back from their mission, after being able to talk clearly like that after five beers she could actually have a chance of not losing so badly.

After Gray had handed out another beer to Erza, he twisted the empty bottle again. It pointed at Erza.

"Truth or Dare?"

"Dare."

"Kiss Lucy on the mouth."

Natsu gulped, that had been pretty brave and he expected Erza to become angry. Never in his life would he have expected what really happened: Erza and Lucy exchanging a quick glance and a nod, then Erza was leaning into Lucy and kissed her sloppily on the mouth, and it was not only a short kiss. They shifted against each other, leaning in even closer. Natsu slowly turned his head to face Gray and after some seconds the ice mage seemed to have noticed his gaze, because he looked straight in Natsu's eyes. They exchanged a surprised and questioning look, both subtly shaking their head and then returned their gaze on the kissing pair.

After what felt like nearly a minute the two parted, smiled at each other, wiped away the drool on their lips and then looked at the boys like nothing had happened.

"Myyy turn!" Erza exclaimed and twisted the bottle. When it stopped, it was hard to tell in whose direction it pointed, Erza's or Gray's. When the ice mage noticed that, he leaned away from Erza, not wanting the bottle to point at him. What he hadn't thought about was that by this he had leaned into the person sitting on his right side - Natsu. When their shoulders touched, the ice mage startled and sat upright again.

The red haired mage sighed and just twisted it again with the result that this time it was doubtlessly pointing on Gray. She grinned.

"Truthordaaare?"

Finally the alcohol seemed to have reached her brain, making her slur.

"Uh... Dare?"

"Kissss Natsu. On his liiiips." She giggled.

Natsu immediately blushed crimson, feeling dizzy again, his heart jumping in anticipation. Gray would _kiss_ him. On his _lips_. Oh god...

"No. I'll drink..."

Sharp pain surged through him at hearing those words.

"Gray, cm'on. We jus' did the same. You can... can't jus' allllways runnaway."

"You can't force me... something like this... I just... I'm not running away! I just don't want... like this."

"Wu'you _eeeever_ fin' the courage-"

"Stop it, Erza, give him a break, he's right. If he doesn't want to be forced into something like this, then you shouldn't push the issue", Lucy intervened.

"But Gray'sssuch a shybaaaby..."

"Shut it, Erza!" Gray demanded.

"Will you ev- ever confess your looove to-"

"SHUT IT! One more word and I don't know what I'll do, so shut the fuck up!"

"If ya' kiss Natttsu I'll shuddup"

"You-"

"Or I'll tell" Erza threatened.

"That's it; I'm leaving, don't follow me, leave me alone!" And before anyone could react, Gray had jumped over the fence surrounding the garden and had run off into the forest. Erza slumped down in Lucy's lap, weeping, saying "I'm sorry" over and over again. Lucy stroked her hair.

"You meant well. It's okay. Shhhh... Don't cry."

Natsu sat thunderstruck on his place, too confused to understand what happened. _Leave me alone,_ his mind echoed. It reminded him of something... But his mind was hazy, every thought he tried to think was blurry, the only thing he knew for sure was that Gray was angry... and alone. He'd said 'leave me alone', but he wasn't willing to obey this wish. He would go after him; he couldn't leave him alone with his negative feelings.

"I'll bring him back."

It wasn't difficult to pursue the ice mage, as he knew his scent by heart and could follow the trace easily. He found Gray on a clearing they had created earlier that day by logging trees. He was sitting on a trunk with his back turned to Natsu.

This was the moment he remembered something. An important memory he had forgotten.

* * *

 _Gray... where have you gone? Gray... don't be sad, please... I want to be there for you, let me be with you, let me ease your pain... Gray..._

Natsu was following the path his nose led him to find Gray, seriously worried about the ice mage, who had left the guild hall in a gloomy mood some time ago, shouting to everyone "leave me alone". It was that day of the year again. Exactly four years ago Gray had lost everyone who had been important to him by the hand of Deliora, a demon of one of Zeref's books.

The pink haired Dragon Slayer had tried to suppress the urge to follow the ice mage because he knew he should respect the wish of his best friend. He could understand how hard it was to lose somebody important. And Gray hadn't lost only one person important to him, but all of them at once. Seeing him so sad made Natsu want to cry and what made him nearly go insane was the knowledge that he couldn't do anything to make it better. He couldn't undo the past, he couldn't bring Gray's beloved ones back to life. The only thing he could possibly do was to lend him a shoulder to cry on, show him that he cared for him, that he'd always be there for him... It wouldn't make things better, obviously. But he could distract him, comfort him and maybe make him forget his pain for a short time. Anything was better than seeing his best friend in grief. After some pondering Natsu finally had decided to go after the ice mage.

The scent of Gray led him into the forest near Magnolia, to an opening where they were training a lot. When he caught sight of his friend, he stopped dead in his tracks. Gray was standing with his back turned to Natsu, staring into the forest, unmoving. The sight made his heart tighten in pain. He needed to do something, needed to snap his friend out of his dark thoughts.

"Gray!"

No reaction. The ice mage didn't seem to have noticed him. Natsu slowly approached him, not wanting to startle his friend. He got no reaction even when he reached Gray, standing only some feet behind him. He spoke again, with a soft voice.

"Gray..."

Still not moving, the ice mage spoke with a cold and despising voice.

"I'm not in the mood for a brawl, so piss of."

Not letting himself be discouraged by this answer, as he had expected this kind of response, he replied with a gentle voice.

"I'm not here for fighting; I'm here to help you."

Gray had turned around to face Natsu, his face an ugly grimace of disgust.

" _Help_ me? How the hell could you help me?!"

"I- I don't know... I just... want to be there for you..."

"I don't need your pity."

"N- no, that's not-"

"Then WHAT?"

"I can underst-"

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU KNOW OF LOSING YOUR WHOLE FAMILY? You've only ever had Igneel, and as far as you know he could still be alive, so HOW DARE YOU TELL ME YOU UNDERSTAND?"

Not having expected this kind of emotional outburst, Natsu was having a hard time controlling the tears that threatened to fill his eyes.

"Th- that was not what-"

"Go away. Leave me alone. You cannot help me. Go."

"But-"

"GO! FUCK OFF!"

He didn't dodge the icy fist that raced towards his body. It hit him hard in the stomach, sent him flying a few meters away. By then Natsu had given up fighting the tears, he was weeping, not because of the physical but emotional pain he was feeling. He pulled himself together, stood up, met Gray's gaze briefly with tearstained eyes and then turned around and ran away, as fast as he could, not caring where he was heading, just away from the angry ice mage, to a place where he could be alone with his emotions.

When he finally thought he'd run far enough, he found himself in the hills near Magnolia, in a place he had never been before, by a small and abandoned shack. He went to the threshold, sat down and buried his face between his hands. He had never felt so lost before. It was all only because of his love for Gray. If it hadn't been for his affection for the ice mage, he would never have followed him in the woods. This would never have happened. If he just could... somehow fall out of love. Everything would be better. Everything would be easier. He should forget this feeling.

He was desperate to forget what he was feeling for his best friend, so desperate he subconsciously used his Magic Power to lock away his love for Gray, buried deep inside his heart, to be forgotten forever. He also erased his memories of feeling more than friendship for the ice mage. Then everything went black.

* * *

Natsu collapsed to the ground. He closed his eyes, searched inside him for the imaginary box he had sealed his feelings in. He found it immediately, checked its state and found that it was already half-broken, leaking a part of his feelings for Gray into his body. It had cracked the day of his fight with Gray, when he had used a small part of the Magic Power that he had always subconsciously preserved to contain his love.

Natsu released it, destroyed the container utterly, setting his love free, letting himself be overwhelmed by the true extent of his feelings for Gray.


	3. Fight for your love!

When Natsu looked up at his best friend again, he was glad he was already sitting on the ground. How could he ever have thought that these feelings were bad? They were pure, wonderful and made him incredibly happy just by looking at Gray sitting on a trunk. This was nothing he could ignore or hide from any longer. He had waited too long already, spent too much time not knowing what he felt for his rival and best friend. If Gray was in love with somebody else, he would make him fall in love with him instead. He'd do everything for his icy princess, everything he possibly could. He wasn't afraid anymore. And Gray also shouldn't be afraid of his own feelings any longer... even if it meant that he would become a couple with someone else... If they really weren't meant for each other, then he at least wanted to see the love of his life happy...

* * *

Gray was completely lost in thoughts, trying to figure out how he should hide his feelings if Erza was insisting on telling Natsu... He didn't even know how she had figured it out as he had always tried to hide what he was feeling. He didn't even want to think about what might happen if Natsu were to learn the truth. He'd despise him, laugh at him for being gay, for falling in love with his rival. And what was even worse was that now Natsu seemed to have figured out that he, too, was in love with somebody. He couldn't stand to see the Dragon Slayer date somebody else... His heart couldn't take it if that was going to happen...

"Gray..." A soft voice was saying behind him. It belonged to Natsu. Was he really that desperate already that he imagined things? Or had his friend really come to find him? Had Erza told him what she knew about his feelings? Did he come to dump him, to break his heart? _Please, no... don't..._

"I'm sorry Gray... I followed you even if you didn't want me to... Please don't shout at me or punch me like back then..."

 _He remembered!_ Gray jumped to his feet and turned around. Natsu was stand standing before him. There was no trace of disdain in his eyes, no hate or pity, only sincere worry.

"You... remember?"

"Yes, I remember everything now... crystal..."

This was his chance, his chance to finally do what he had wanted to do for the last nine years since that incident... He dropped to his knees and bent over so far that his face was nearly touching the ground.

"I'm so sorry for what I've done to you back then... You were following me to help me, to distract me, but I... I just... trampled on... I- I shouted... and I... hit you..." he was weeping bitterly; finally able to release the sorrow he had felt over all these years because of what he had done.

"Shhh, it's o-"

"No. Let me finish... please... There's so much... so much I've wanted to tell you... But you... you seemed to have forgotten... completely forgotten... so I couldn't tell you... but now... I- I wanted you to know that... I feel incredibly sorry... and endlessly thankful for what you've done... you've saved me from my demons... After you left, crying... I- I- I..." he sobbed heartbreakingly, "I wanted to run after you... but you were gone already, I didn't know where you had gone... couldn't find you... wanted to apologize and make your tears go away... all I could think about was how stupid I was, that I should've been happy you followed me... but instead I made you cry... and I... I hate to see you cry..."

"I forgive you, Gray, so please get up..."

He felt a tug on his shoulders, trying to pull him up. He didn't resist, he let himself be helped in a standing and somewhat upright position, but he was feeling wobbly. He was still crying and didn't find the courage to look at Natsu, so he kept his eyes closed, feeling the tears streaming down his face and falling off his chin.

Then suddenly he felt something incredibly soft on his face, wiping away his tears. He was surprised, opened his eyes to see what it was and when he noticed Natsu was wiping his tears with the scarf Igneel had given him, it was too much. Seeing his best friend care for him like this made his knees so weak they couldn't hold him upright any longer. He was about to sink to the ground again- when he felt strong arms wrapping around his body, holding him tight, preventing him from falling. It was an embrace... Gray's chin was resting on Natsu's right shoulder and Natsu's face was pressed against the crook of his neck.

"That makes it two of us, I also don't like to see you cry..."

He wasn't crying anymore, too overwhelmed by this new sensation of having his best friend so close to him. So close he could smell the pleasant scent of Natsu, feel his heartbeat against his chest and feel the warmth his skin was radiating. It felt so good to be pressed against this person he desired more than anything else. He was thinking hard if it was okay to hug Natsu back, to pull him in even tighter, but then found that he couldn't stop himself from doing so anyway. His arms were already moving around the body of his best friend, his right shoulder shooting sharp pain through his body as he did so, but he didn't care, not now, this couldn't stop him from hugging the only person he had ever fallen in love with. When he closed his arms firmly around the body in front of him, Natsu's arms seemed to clutch at him even tighter. What exactly was happening here?

"Gray, please don't run from your feelings any longer."

 _Huh?_ Why would he say something like that? And what was he supposed to say?

"I've also run from my feelings way too long and I finally noticed that's not the way to go. I'll act on it, make him fall in love with me and make him mine, no matter what or how long it takes."

 _Hi- him? Oh dear god..._ He was trembling by now and if it wasn't for Natsu still holding him tight, he would have sunk to the ground yet again.

"You- you... are-"

"In love with a man, yes. Is that a problem for you?"

"N- no, no, not at all!"

"Good. You should do the same. I don't know who it is you're in love with or if she loves you back, but even if she doesn't, I'm sure you could make her fall for you in no time."

 _Her? You're my only love, stupid flame-brain..._ How had Natsu not noticed by now that it was _him_ he was in love with? He had thought that a Dragon Slayer's nose could smell emotions. Had he been wrong? Or could Natsu not recognize the smell of love or just couldn't identify the target of it? He decided to push his boundaries, it was now or never.

"Why do you think I could make her fall for me?"

"Because you're Gray. You're strong, clever, good-looking, charming, funny, sexy, adorable... you're just the type to make somebody fall in love easily... You should have more self-confidence. Just be yourself and you'll make her yours in no time..."

 _Holy shit!_ This was what Natsu thought about him? Sexy? Good-looking? Adorable? His heart was beating so fast and irregular it couldn't be healthy anymore. Plus he really couldn't fathom that the Dragon Slayer still hadn't noticed anything... He was nearly going crazy in his arms, their bodies were so close to each other that Natsu must have noticed what was going on with him! Maybe this was the right time to finally confess... Natsu had wanted him to not run from his feelings anymore, so he'd face them... Right now!

"Natsu... I want to... tell you something..." _you can do that!_

"Go ahead."

"Th- the one... I'm in love with... is..." _breathe... calm down_ "... male..." _idiot._

"That's fine by me, then go and make _him_ fall in love with you!"

Natsu was releasing the embrace and he wanted to scream no, wait, but he didn't find the courage to do so. He was panting heavily and when Natsu had released him completely and thus didn't support him anymore, he needed to sit down on the nearest trunk. He didn't dare to look Natsu in the eyes.

"Let's fight for our happiness."

That made him look up and what he saw was breathtaking. His best friend was smiling widely, offering him his left hand and he wondered if it was for helping him up or for making a promise. He found himself smiling just as widely and taking the offered hand, not caring why it was offered, saying "Yeah... let's fight." And he swore to himself he would fight for his love from now on. Even if he couldn't confess his love outright, he could still do many things to _show_ it. He could take it slow, getting closer to Natsu bit by bit, showing a bit more of his love and dedication every day.

He was pulled upright by Natsu's hand and Gray nearly hugged him again, but the pink haired mage turned around and started walking, waving him to follow. They spent the way back in comfortable silence, both lost in their own thoughts, coming up with a plan on how to make the other fall in love.

* * *

When they finally reached their hotel again, it was already past 10 p.m. and they had to get up early for work the next day. The tidying up of the garden had taken very long, as they didn't only have to fulfill the tidy-up task, but also needed to take care of Erza, who had drunken two more beers while Natsu and Gray had been gone. It wasn't only once that Erza had caused more chaos while they weren't paying attention to her. So they had taken turns in watching over her. What had made the process even longer was Natsu's absence for nearly fifteen minutes after saying he had 'something important to do' and he'd be right back. Happy hadn't woken up until everything was clean again.

Gray had walked straight to their hotel room, wishing a good night to everyone briefly. He wanted to take a quick shower and sleep already. Shortly before entering their room he looked back and saw Natsu whispering something in Happy's ear while Happy was covering his mouth with both his paws, eyes wide and face turning red. It was at times like this when he wished he had the sharp senses of a Dragon Slayer so he could hear what his friend was whispering. He shook his head and entered the shared hotel room. He quickly grabbed his showering utensils, entered the bathroom, locked the door behind him, wanted to take off his clothes but noticed he had already lost them somewhere on his way. Shrugging, he entered the shower and turned on the water.

He tried to think about something that wasn't Natsu-related but failed miserably. His voice echoed in his mind over and over again. _Because you're Gray. You're strong, clever, good-looking, charming, funny, sexy, adorable..._ His heart sped up again, heat was spreading throughout his body. He still felt a tingling sensation on his skin where it had touched Natsu's. He imagined his best friend touching him erotically on his chest, his back, his ass... Shit. His cock was hard and throbbing and aching to be touched.

He turned the water as cold as possible, hoping to cool himself off enough to make his boner go away. Of course it didn't work on him and he had laughed about himself for the try if he hadn't been so damn horny. He couldn't control his hands any longer, he needed to work this out of his system _now_ , so he opened the tap to its maximum, hoping the sound of the pouring water would overlap what he was about to do. He pictured Natsu the night before; how he was masturbating in bed next to him, moaning his name, and reached down to grab his cock and started stroking at a rapid pace.

"nghhh... ahhh..."

He bit on his left arm to suppress the moans, speeding up even more. He hadn't jerked off since some weeks already plus the recent events had him building up more sexual energy, so he reached his limit quickly. Thinking about Natsu moaning his name while coming, he climaxed, shooting squirts of white cum against the tiles of the shower, hardly able to hold himself upright while the orgasm rocked his body heavily. When his body had finally cooled down, he quickly washed off his sperm and finished showering.

When he exited the bathroom, dressed only in shorts and still toweling his damp hair, he found Natsu sitting on their bed, curiously watching him.

"Is that how you usually do it?"

He felt his cheeks turning red.

"Do what?"

"Don't play dumb, you just 'touched yourself' in the shower."

So he really had heard it. Damn his ears. This was fucking embarrassing. He walked to his side of the bed in what he hoped was a nonchalant way and flopped onto the bed.

"I could even hear how your sperm came out and how it hit the tiles..."

Gray choked on his breath, turning even redder.

"How did you make your penis hard?"

Okay. This was enough. He sat up, facing Natsu, preparing to scold him.

"This isn't something people normally talk about. It's embarrassing as hell to talk about any sexual issues. And it's also not... common... to... uh, _touch yourself_ while lying next to somebody who isn't your boyfriend or girlfriend... That's called 'masturbating' by the way..." Gray's voice had softened while he was talking and when he finished it was nothing more than a whisper.

"So if I succeed in making my special one fall for me and we become a couple, I can talk with him about it and 'masturbate' next to him?"

Was there really no limit to the cockiness of his friend? Why couldn't he just drop the issue? _Because he's Natsu_... He sighed.

"If that's... okay with him, yes... b- but you shouldn't rush it..."

"I'm even more fired up now! Ah, but I can still do it in the shower now, right? You'll not be in the bathroom after all."

 _What the...?_ Gray was sure he never had blushed as purple as now.

"D- do whatever y- you want when you're alone... And quit talking about this to me already!"

Natsu was giving him a wide grin, collecting everything he needed to shower and disappeared in the bathroom. The ice mage sighed and let himself sink down on the bed.

It wasn't long before he heard moans coming from the bathroom. _That perverted bastard..._ He should've told his friend to keep his groaning to a low volume.

"Ahhh... nghhh..."

Fuck, he was getting hard again... _Relax, keep your shit together, he can hear you..._

"Haaahh..."

Was he doing that purposely? Did he know what kind of influence he would have on the ice mage and he was provoking it? But he guessed that for somebody who didn't know a thing about sex the idea of arousing somebody else with his actions was beyond imagination.

He just needed to endure it, wait until Natsu finished and his erection wore off. The mere thought at the Dragon Slayer coming against the same tiles he had not more than ten minutes ago made his cock bounce happily in his pants, wanting to be touched.

 _Think about something else._ He propped up on his right elbow, but immediately regretted it as sharp pain surged from his right shoulder through his body. So he sat up completely instead. He tried busying himself with examining the hotel room closely, trying to block out the moans coming from the bathroom, which were getting more and more heated. If he had to guess he'd say Natsu would come in less than thirty seconds- but he wasn't listening or guessing, he was examining the hotel room. Closely. There was this beautiful painting on the wall, it showed a red rose before a black background and Natsu's moans were getting more and more heated- and there was this beautiful nightstand made out of... wood. Judging by the moans his best friend was already climaxing or very, very close- but he was just checking the hotel room. There was a bottle of lube on Natsu's nightstand and tissues... _lube and tissues? Holy shiiit._ What had he planned to do with these? And _when exactly_ had Natsu bought the lube? Or had he brought it here from home? But it hadn't been there yesterday... Maybe he had it hidden in his bag until today? But why... He'd said he was in love with a man, and for a pretty long time already, that meant it had to be somebody of the guild, but the only other man of their guild that was here beside Natsu was... Gray. Was it him? Was he really Natsu's _special one?_

The moaning had stopped. Gray had been so caught up in his thoughts that he hadn't even noticed. He sighed with relief and let himself sink down on the bed once more. He refused to stare at the lube or think about what it meant. He'd notice soon enough if it was meant to be used on him. Maybe he'd just ask Natsu about it. The silly Dragon Slayer surely wouldn't even find the question intruding.

When Natsu entered the room again, he was already wearing his pajamas. He was striding straight to the bed, sitting down, grasped the bottle of lube and faced Gray. _So soon?_

"Gray, turn around, please."

This couldn't be true.

"What are you planning with this?"

"Massaging you, of course."

With that, he showed Gray the label of the bottle. It was saying 'massage oil & lube'. The bottle had been standing on the nightstand in a way where he had been only able to read 'lube'. He felt silly for believing that the Dragon Slayer had actually known what lube was used for. However, he would be receiving a massage from his best friend. His skin tingled with anticipation. He didn't care about the reason why the Dragon Slayer wanted to give him a massage, the mere _fact_ that he'd be _massaged by Natsu_ was enough to make him follow the order without hesitation.

"I'll massage your right shoulder, so it would be the easiest if I could sit on your ass, if that's okay with you?"

 _On my ass..._ He didn't know what else he had expected as most of the non-professional back massages were given with the masseur sitting on the ass of the other... But he felt really nervous now...

"S- sure."

* * *

Natsu gulped, he was nervous as hell. He really felt guilty for the shoulder ache of his best friend so it was his duty to take care of it. For that reason he had run off to a 'Conbini' while the others were tidying up the garden and bought the bottle he was holding now. He had brought it to their hotel room before running back to the garden to help the others again. It was meant to be a surprise after all and was also a part of his plan to win Gray over.

He crawled over the bed to his best friend, swung his right leg over him and sat down on his muscular ass. He was really happy he had just masturbated in the shower or he was sure he'd already be hard by now. And Gray didn't like him being hard, so he tried to avoid it.

He opened the bottle, poured a bit of the massage oil - which smelled strongly like lemongrass - on his hand, closed the bottle with one hand and tossed it on the bed and moved his hand towards the aching shoulder. He paused shortly before touching the skin of his best friend, closed his eyes and then laid his hands on the smooth skin. The feeling was incredible, sending warm shivers through his body. Slowly he began moving his hands, spreading the oil on Gray's shoulder, pushing slightly to the spots where he expected the muscles to be cramped. This earned him a painful hiss from his friend.

"If it's too much, please tell me and I'll stop."

"Yeah... I'll tell you... but this feels good, even if it's a bit painful"

Encouraged, Natsu kept massaging the shoulder of his best friend thoroughly. Whenever he got a painful hiss as response, he kept the pressure on that spot and waited until the pain would ease before he continued.

After some minutes, Gray didn't seem to have pain while massaging anymore, so Natsu asked him to move his right arm and tell him if it was better than before. He didn't want to stop, didn't want to break the physical contact with his best friend, but what else could he do to stay close to him? When Gray told him that his shoulder was indeed feeling much better now, he didn't get up immediately. He craved to touch him some more, but he had no idea for what reason he could possibly do that.

"Natsu?"

"Yes?"

"If you don't mind... could you massage me some more... also my back... you're... pretty talented."

"Okay!"

"O- only if you... want..."

 _Hell yes, I want!_

"Anything for you, princess."

"He- hey, I'm not-"

"Then how about... 'snowflake'?"

* * *

Natsu had spoken the last word so tenderly that Gray's heart leaped for joy. He could have just as well said 'I love you' and it would have caused the same reaction in his heart. _Snowflake..._ He loved it, loved how it sounded when Natsu said it.

"Th- that's okay."

"Snowflake, then."

And with that Natsu put his hands flat on his shoulder blades and started moving them, then noticed he didn't have enough oil on his hands to cover his whole back, so he grabbed the bottle and poured some more- directly on his back. He jerked, not because of the cool feeling but simply because he hadn't seen this coming. He heard Natsu giggle and toss the bottle on the bed again. _That cocky bastard!_

When he felt those hands moving against his back, he believed to be back in paradise. He relaxed and enjoyed these skilled hands moving over his skin. Seriously, where had Natsu learned to massage like this? Had he done this before to other people? Jealousy swept over him and he immediately regretted thinking about it. He should savor his rare moment, not spoil it with dwelling on jealousy.

He sighed with pleasure as Natsu found a spot on his lower back that felt really good. It was close to the waistband of his pants, but he didn't care, it felt too good and he wanted more of it. The fire mage seemed to have understood, because he was giving that spot extra treatment.

Gray had completely lost track of the time as he was enjoying the massage. It felt like it had been only a few minutes when Natsu stopped massaging, claiming he was tired and wanted to sleep. He raised his head to check the clock. 11:30 p.m. His best friend had massaged for about _an hour_. A whole fucking hour. They should really go to sleep as they had to wake up at 6 a.m. the next day. On the other hand, both he and Natsu had slept during the day. _Was that really today?_ So many things had happened that day, it almost was hard to believe it had happened in only one day.

"Yeah, let's sleep. Are you for available for rent? Your massage was awesome..."

"You couldn't afford that, droopy-eyes."

"Who said I'd pay with money?" _Oops..._ He mentally face-palmed for spurting out something like that without even thinking about the consequences. He blamed it on the massage for making him so light-headed. He felt Natsu shifting slightly.

"Oohh? Then I'll think about it." And with that, the fire mage crawled off of him and to his side. Gray had expected a teasing response or something really mean, but _this?_ It made his heart leap with excitement. Talking about excitement... _something_ had become bigger during the bodily care he had been receiving the past hour.

"You haven't brushed your teeth yet, ice princess."

"I said I'm not a goddamn princess."

"And when did I ever stop doing something that annoys you?"

"B- but you said..."

"That's an additional nickname. A special one... Now be a good princess and brush your teeth, will you?"

"Screw you!" He jumped over to pin Natsu, ready to punch him in the face, when the eyes of the Dragon Slayer wandered down to his crotch and an evil smirk spread on his face.

"And maybe you should _touch yourself_ while you're in the bathroom. You sure look like you need it."

Gray blushed crimson, jumped off the bed and fled to the bathroom. He shot a furious "as if I'd do that with you eavesdropping, you perverted bastard!" before slamming the door shut.

* * *

When Gray had shut the bathroom door, Natsu at last let himself relax. The last hour had been a rollercoaster of emotions, touching his best friend, yet knowing he couldn't do any more than massaging even if he wanted to so badly. His spiraling thoughts had left him dizzy and barely able to concentrate on the massage and now he felt drained, ready to fall asleep any second...

But he couldn't fall asleep just yet; he had one final thing he wanted to try... Earlier that day when Gray had been sleeping and he had not, he had leaned over his friend and _nearly kissed him..._ He wondered what would happen when he was sleeping and Gray was not. If his friend really had feelings for _him_ , would he do something similar? He'd pretend to be asleep and see what happened. Even if nothing like that happened, it couldn't do any harm. He purposely faced Gray's bedside when he closed his eyes and steadied his breath. Sleeping people were breathing slowly and deeply. He heard the handle of the bathroom door being pushed down. _Action!_ He went still and started snoring slightly.

* * *

The sight that greeted Gray when he re-entered their sleeping room was lovely. A sleeping Natsu, sprawled out on his bedside, one leg covered by the blanket, the other one over it, his left arm lying over the blanket on his stomach, the right one stretched out so far his hand was dangling over the edge of the mattress.

He went to the bed, hopped on it and turned the lights off. He let his eyes wander to his right side and gulped. The moon was lighting up the room to a degree where he could still see nearly every detail of the sleeping beauty next to him. His heart rate increased. Natsu was sound asleep. If he happened to brush a finger over this beautiful face... When he noticed what he was about to do, he was already leaning over his sleeping friend, his left hand only millimeters away from Natsu's cheeks... He shouldn't do that... He had no right to touch him like that, even in his sleep. With all the self-control he could muster, he pulled his hand back. Trying to satisfy the strong urge to release his feelings somehow, he settled for whispering _"I love you, you flame-brained idiot..."_ before pulling back completely and trying to fall asleep despite his inner turmoil.

Natsu was glad that Gray was making some noise right after confessing, because he couldn't stop himself from gasping after hearing those words. _I love you, flame-brained idiot..._ He loved _him!_ This love was mutual, it was returned, they would be a couple and they would someday... have sex with each other...

Suddenly pictures flooded his mind, pictures of two men without faces, naked, their cocks hard, touching each other, stroking each other, then one of them was putting his cock inside the ass of the other and was moving in and out until he reached his _orgasm_ and shot out his _semen, cum, ejaculate, sperm_ in the ass of the other. Words like these were ghosting through his mind, words he had never heard before. He saw more, different sex positions, face-fucking, masturbating next to each other and much more he was embarrassed about as hell.

After the flood of new information had ebbed away, he finally understood the behavior of his best friend. It wasn't that he didn't _want_ to talk about sex with him or see him hard or have _him_ see _Gray_ hard, it was just _embarrassing as hell_. He thought about the previous night, when he had masturbated in bed right next to his best friend. _Fuck. Holy, fucking shit!_ What the hell had he done? Just now he noticed what he had done to Gray. He had been lying next to him, horny as hell, but hadn't dared even _looking_ at him. He could now recognize the smell of lust and he could tell that _this_ scent had been the most prominent the night before. Hell, if he had any chance to undo what he had done he'd do it without hesitation.

And it was not only last night. He'd masturbated again, today, in the shower, and - _oh god_ \- he had moaned like a bitch in heat. He'd fucked things up without knowing what he'd done. He'd harassed Gray unknowingly. Though he knew it had bothered his best friend only because he had to control his own emotions and desire, he felt the urge to make it up to him.

Now that he knew how love smelled - it was the sweetest and most addicting smell he had ever scented - and with whom the ice mage was in love with, he searched his memory for the first time he had ever smelled love on Gray and figured he didn't even remember when that was. It had _always_ been there, for as long as he could remember. Had he been in love with _Natsu_ since they were little children? He couldn't even imagine how hard it must have been on him, hiding his emotions for so long. If Gray had acted on it earlier, he didn't know how he would have reacted. Whether he'd just outright rejected him or maybe even remembered that there had been _something_ he'd forgotten, suppressed - it wouldn't have been the same as now. It could have destroyed everything they had. Natsu had buried the feelings for his icy princess deep inside his heart for nearly 9 years and had completely forgotten about them. He had just gotten aware of his feelings some hours ago and he already felt like they were drowning him if he didn't let them out, too much love to be kept inside. He couldn't even imagine containing those feelings for far more than a decade.

He'd do this properly. He'd woo Gray, make him melt and make him truly his. He'd take him out on dates, show him he cared for him, romance him, make up for the last day...

His heart was pounding heavily in his chest. He'd do this thoroughly. He was a dragon and a dragon had to fight for his mate. He _needed_ to.


	4. First Date

In the morning Natsu decided to put the first step of his plan into action. They were about to leave the room when he finally found the courage to act.

"How about we eat dinner at some restaurant today?" Natsu asked nonchalantly.

Gray arched his eyebrow in surprise.

"Will the girls and Happy come along?"

"U- uh... I haven't asked yet. I wanted to know what you think about it first."

"Since when do you care what I think? Usually you would just announce that we'll go to eat dinner at some fishy restaurant and drag everybody along."

Natsu shifted awkwardly at the alert stare of his best friend. He was acting too nervously, of course Gray would take notice of his odd behavior. He shouldn't behave differently or Gray would find out too soon. What would he usually do? Just announce it confidently and drag everybody along. Exactly what his ice princess had said. Plus he really didn't have any reason to be nervous as he already knew that it was him Gray was in love with. He straightened himself.

"Right. Today we'll go out to eat dinner together and if you don't want I'll beat you there. And the places I'm choosing are not fishy! Now let's hurry, I don't want Erza to kill us first thing in the morning."

On the way to work, they were arguing about whether or not the restaurants of Natsu's choice were fishy, earning them a death glare by Erza as soon as they met up with them.

* * *

The second day of their mission passed uneventful. Lucy had learned from Erza how to determine the direction in which a logged tree would fall, so she didn't endanger her friends any longer. Natsu and Gray hadn't dared to start another fight with Erza eyeing them like a hawk searching for prey.

When they returned to their room in the afternoon, Natsu wanted them to take a shower before heading to the restaurant.

Gray wondered if it was going to be expensive. But knowing Natsu it would probably be the fishiest and cheapest restaurant in town. He briefly wondered when Natsu had found the time to select a restaurant, but didn't pay the thought much attention; he would find out soon enough.

When the both of them were ready to go, they left their room and Gray expected them to go to the girl's room and fetch Lucy, Erza and Happy, but Natsu was heading straight to the exit.

"Hey, flame-brain, didn't you forget something?"

Natsu turned around, looking confused.

"What? Do I still have shampoo in my hair or something?"

"Idiot! What about the girls and Happy?"

"What about them?"

"You won't drag them along?"

"Nope, we're going alone. You've got a problem with that, popsicle?"

Gray paused. Did Natsu even notice how this sounded like? _A date..._ He tried to fight the blush that was threatening to spread on his cheeks and resumed walking.

"Are you challenging me to an eating contest?"

"Not this time, ice princess. We both know I'd win anyway," Natsu answered with a cocky smile.

Not an eating contest and the two of them would go alone... That _really_ looked like a date... He couldn't fight the blush any longer.

Gray was too busy with his own thoughts; he even forgot to oppose Natsu's teasing. He was mentally freaking out, thinking hard about how he should behave on a _date with Natsu._

 _'Just be yourself and you'll make her yours in no time...'_ Be himself, huh? How could he possibly act normally if his heart was racing when he was so close to Natsu and on a date with him? Although Natsu was probably thinking this was anything but a date, being the idiot he was. He was likely just trying to appease Erza and Lucy, showing them that he _was_ able to eat dinner with Gray without them ending up killing each other.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he bumped into Natsu's back. He hadn't noticed that his best friend had stopped walking. They had just left the area of the hotel.

"Oi, don't just stop like that!"

"You should pay more attention to your surroundings, ice princess."

Uh. Well. He had a point.

Natsu turned around, looking at him lost and apologetic and he was scratching the back of his head nervously. Gray wondered what happened.

"Do you know any restaurant in this town?"

This couldn't be true! _Natsu_ had asked _Gray_ to go out to eat dinner and he didn't have any clue where to go? He sighed. This was so like him.

"I thought you already decided on a restaurant."

Natsu shook his head.

"I thought we'd just ask some people in the town and then decide where we want to go."

So he still had a choice. That was good. He didn't want to end up in some fast-food restaurant.

"Yeah, fine, let's do that."

Natsu lead them to the main shopping street of the town, looked around a bit and then approached a woman and a man walking hand in hand. Gray guessed they were both about twenty years old. He decided it was Natsu's duty to do the talking, so he waited a few meters away.

* * *

"Excuse me, are you locals?"

The blonde woman eyed Natsu curiously and when she spotted the guild crest on his upper arm, her eyes widened a bit. Then her eyes wandered over to Gray, who was leaning - shirtless - against a nearby brick wall. Her tall, black-haired boyfriend kindly answered.

"Yes, we are. Can we help?"

The woman didn't take her eyes off of Gray and her scent changed slightly to lustful. Natsu nearly growled at her but he held it back.

"Yeah, I'm wondering if you could recommend a restaurant, nothing _fishy,_ but also not too expensive... Somewhere you can spend a nice evening."

The woman was inspecting Gray's face, her eyes lingering on his lips. Natsu quickly glanced over his shoulder to check how Gray was dealing with her stare, but then their eyes met and his friend quickly averted his eyes to the ground. His cheeks were colored red. Gray hadn't even noticed the woman staring at him because he had been busy staring only at _him._ Natsu couldn't help but smile.

"You mean, like a date, eh?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"There is a really good German restaurant a few blocks from here, it's cozy inside and the food is not too expensive."

His girlfriend was still staring at Gray, now she was eyeing his crotch and gulped, then licked her lips. How blunt this woman was! And her boyfriend didn't seem to notice anything! He resisted the urge to look over to Gray again.

"That sounds nice. How do we find it?"

"We're heading in that-" he pointed down the street they had been walking before Natsu had stopped them "-direction anyway, we could walk you there, right Becca-chan?"

Becca- _chan_ shot her boyfriend a lovey-dovey glance before nodding.

"We'd _love_ to show you."

The boy laughed, teasing Becca about how she was always sooo nice to people and some other stuff he didn't pay attention to. He was too busy controlling the anger that was building up inside him. If he didn't take care, he would punch her right in her heavily made-up face. But punching a girl, especially a non-mage was despicable. Natsu waited until the boy was finished fawning on her, then gathered all his self-control to keep his voice neutral and spoke again.

"Thank you, that's a friendly offer, but I actually still wanted to see something over there-" he pointed in the opposite direction "-and after that we wanted to head to the restaurant."

"I see, then you just need to follow this street and turn left at the third crossroad from here. It's on the right side, called... I can't really pronounce it, something like 'Zoom Lowen'. You can't really miss it; it has a huge sign with the head of a lion on it."

"Thank you very much! Have a nice evening."

He wanted to get away from this nasty woman - who had her eyes on Gray _again_ \- as soon as possible.

"A nice evening to you, too" the man answered, bowing his head slightly.

He beckoned Gray and started to walk in the direction where he had 'wanted to see something'. He was trembling out of the sheer force to keep his boiling anger inside. They were well out of earshot when Gray had caught up with him.

"Natsu! You didn't tell me you wanted to go shopping before dinner."

"I don't."

"You don't want to go shopping? Then why-"

"Gray. Cool me down."

He had stopped and turned around to face Gray. He took the hand of the ice mage and put it on his forehead. Gray faltered and looked at Natsu suspiciously, but when he saw the stern face, he pulled himself together and let magic flow in his hand, cooling the fire mage down.

When Natsu felt the chill on his forehead, he sighed with relief, slowly letting go of his anger. He released the grip on Gray's arm, but the hand stayed on his forehead, cooling him down until he felt better.

When he had finally regained full control of his feelings, he regarded Gray with a thankful glance, nodding slightly, showing him that it was okay to let go now. Only when his friend removed his hand he noticed the stares and whispers of some people around. When he shot them angry glares, they quickly turned away, resumed walking or whatever they had been doing before.

It was then when he noticed that offensive scent coming closer again. He quickly walked into a small backstreet, dragging Gray with him.

"Gray... you're not interested in women, right?"

His best friend blushed purple, his gaze fixing on his shoes.

"Uh... You know I'm in love with a man, so..."

"That doesn't matter; it doesn't mean you're gay. If a woman offered you sex, would you accept?"

With a start Gray looked him directly in the eyes, face still blushed heavily.

"Why do you want to know? What's wrong?"

"Just answer!"

Gray jerked at that. Natsu felt sorry for shouting and startling his friend with his behavior - but he needed to know. And quickly.

"I... I wouldn't accept."

Natsu sighed in relief.

"That's good."

He didn't really know _why_ he was going to do what he was about to do, but he would think about it later. It just appeared to be a good idea.

He dragged Gray back to the main street, guiding him to a quiet corner between two small shops.

"Please wait here, I'll be right back."

"Why should I wait here? Why can't I just go with-"

"Just do it, please. And don't do something inconsiderate" he said, trying to convey the urgency of his plea with his eyes. He saw icy blue eyes melting under his stare. Gray sighed in defeat.

"Thank you, _snowflake..._ I won't keep you waiting for long" he whispered with a seductive voice. Then he entered the nearest shop, but he could still hear Gray gasping for air and leaning against the shop wall for support. He smiled. Maybe he should not tease his best friend like that? But it was just too cute to see his reactions.

Shortly after he had entered the shop, he could smell and hear that impertinent woman approaching. She was running.

* * *

Gray didn't notice anything around him anymore. He was too caught up in his thoughts, his heart pounding heavily in his chest, heat spreading throughout his whole body. What the hell had just happened? Had Natsu just _flirted_ with him? His sage green eyes had been piercing him with such intense affection... or had it just been his imagination?

Somebody cleared their throat close to him. He looked up, confused, and met brown eyes. He recognized the woman Natsu had been talking to. She was smiling shyly at him.

"Hey, uhm, I'm Becca. I was wondering if you have a girlfriend..."

She shifted slightly. Gray was completely taken by surprise. His heart was still racing because of the previous incident. His brain didn't have the capacity to think this over, so he just answered honestly.

"No, I don't."

Her eyes lit up in delight, then she fumbled about in the pocket of her too tight jeans and drew out a small paper. She handed it over to Gray, who took it, still dumbfounded.

"If you... feel lonely and want to spend a nice time..."

She winked shyly and blushed.

Then suddenly he felt a weight on his right shoulder. Natsu had approached them and was now leaning on Gray's shoulder.

"Yo, Becca! Was the man beside you your boyfriend?" Natsu sounded friendly, overly so, and Gray could tell he had a hard time controlling his voice. It trembled ever so slightly.

"Oh, hi again" she nodded politely. "Yes, why?"

Natsu snapped the note out of Gray's hands, opened it and held it out for the three of them to see. It showed a mobile phone number.

"And what's that?" he hissed with barely restrained anger.

"A phone number, obviously" she said arrogantly, crossing her arms before her chest.

"Does your boyfriend know of this?"

"Of what exactly?"

"That you're cheating on him!" Natsu spat the words out like acid. And really, they were.

"Oh darling, giving him a number can hardly be called cheating."

"It shows your intention to cheat on him." Natsu was snarling at her now.

"Who said it was _my_ number? You shouldn't jump to conclusions." She giggled, turned and walked away, waving her hand at them but not looking back.

Natsu clenched his fists, his whole body trembling with anger. Gray didn't understand why he was so angry. Sure, it was despicable to cheat on somebody, but this was not his business after all. Plus there was no proof that Becca really _had_ cheated on her boyfriend or was about to. And she would sure as hell not cheat with _Gray_. The mere thought of having sex with somebody who was not Natsu made him nauseous.

"That bitch."

Hearing Natsu swearing was nothing new, but hearing him insulting somebody he barely knew and who was not his enemy was something that had never happened before.

"Natsu! That's enough! She didn't do anything for you to freak out like that!"

"She wants go get into your pants."

"Like I care. I don't want to get into hers so it really doesn't matter, right?"

"She's willing to cheat on her boyfriend. He loves her so much. And she's just toying with him, cheating behind his back... That's repulsive!"

"Innocent until proven guilty! How would you possibly know all that?"

"I can smell it. His deep love and admiration for her. Her _lust_ when she stared at you like you're her prey... I swear if she tries something fishy on you, I don't know if I can control myself."

Could it be that Natsu was _jealous?_ Gray shook his head. No way.

"Hey, I can defend myself."

Natsu sighed. He straightened himself and looked straight into Gray's eyes. Gray could see mixed emotions reflecting in the beatiful sage green eyes of his best friend, but he couldn't really pinpoint them.

"Yeah, you're right, sorry... I didn't mean to freak out like that... I just... I don't know, but seeing somebody play with the feelings of another just makes me feel sick..."

"I feel the same way, but there's nothing you can do about it. Come on, just forget about it and let's go. I'm hungry."

Natsu nodded and started walking in the direction of the restaurant. Gray followed him shortly after and caught up with Natsu after some steps. They walked in silence next to each other until they reached the restaurant. It was really easy to find, with its big sign painted with a lion's head swaying slightly in the wind over the entrance. The name of the restaurant was spelled 'Zum Löwen' but Natsu and Gray found that they didn't know how to pronounce that, so they didn't even try. When they entered, a tall male waiter was greeting them.

"Welcome to our German restaurant. Did you reserve a table?"

"No, we didn't."

"Oh, I see... two people? Or are there more to come?"

"Nah, only us two" Natsu answered.

"Actually... we're booked out... But please wait here for a second."

He bowed slightly and then hurried behind the counter and into a back room. It took him about one minute to return.

"Thanks for waiting. One of our guests who had booked a table for two just cancelled a few minutes ago. But the table is... maybe not what you want."

"What do you mean?" Gray inquired.

"Well... I'll just show you and then you can decide if you want to stay."

Both of them nodded and the waiter asked them to follow. He was leading them in the back of the restaurant. There were five broad steps that led up and around a curve. The waiter stopped at the base of the steps and shifted awkwardly but then stepped out of the way and signaled them to take a look.

Natsu climbed up first and let out a "whoaaa" as he reached the top. Gray was curious and pushed him aside. What he saw was really amazing. It was a private booth, the window board decorated with red roses and other beautiful flowers, a dim light illuminating everything. The table cloth was pure white, a beautiful red candle standing in its middle. A pink ribbon and some expensive looking jewels were draped beautifully on the table, around the candle and champagne glasses. Gray gulped. Even the table napkin was white with red roses. This had obviously been meant for a proposal... Or an anniversary or maybe both at once.

The waiter had followed them with a polite distance.

"Of course we could remove the decorations, if you give us some minutes... What do you think?"

"It's okay, no need to remove it, it's beautiful! Uh... do you know why this was canceled?" Natsu blurted out.

"I was told the man on the telephone was crying, so, uh..."

"I see... what a waste... We'll just take the table as it is."

"Thank you. I'll be bringing the menu soon."

Natsu didn't seem to have a problem with this; he even seemed to like it. He sat down on the far end of the table. When he noticed Gray was still standing dumbstruck on the upmost step, he jumped to his feet again, walked to Gray's chair, pulled it back and offered it for him to sit.

"Here you go, mylady" he said with a wink.

Gray's face went crimson, he punched Natsu's arm, but sat on the chair and let himself be pushed to the table. He refused to look at Natsu, only staring at his plate and cutlery, trying to fight back the blush on his face.

Then the waiter reappeared and ended the awkward situation. He handed them the menu and declared that the champagne was free for them as an apology for the circumstances. They let the waiter explain them some of the dishes since they both never ate German food. Natsu ordered an escalope with French fries and Gray ordered fried beef and onions in gravy.

When the waiter left them alone, Gray felt nervous again. He still didn't have the courage to look Natsu in the eyes. He didn't know how he should behave, what Natsu expected of him. They were caught in a highly romantic place after all.

"Hey, popsicle, let's drink the champagne! It's free!"

He smiled. Of course Natsu wouldn't think about this as something special. So he would behave like always. He looked up, finding that Natsu had already lifted his glass and was eyeing him with anticipation. He wanted to clink glasses. What a grotesque thing to do for somebody who destroyed whole buildings within the blink of an eye. He shook his head and lifted his glass. Natsu smiled widely.

"Cheers!" he shouted.

"Cheers..."

Natsu downed his champagne in one go. If they had been in public, Gray would've been ashamed of him, but here, in private, it just made him smile fondly. It was just so much like him. Gray noticed he'd been staring only when Natsu set down his glass and looked back. He quickly averted his eyes, took a nip of his own champagne and set the glass down.

When he looked in Natsu's eyes again, the world stopped for a moment. It was just him and Natsu and his beautiful eyes. He felt like he was falling in love with Natsu even more, if that was at all possible. The dim light, the fire of the candle and the reflection of the light of their glasses made his green eyes shine more beautifully than a jade ever could. He would happily spend hours just staring in these seductive eyes, drowning in them like in an ocean. He couldn't tell how long they had been staring at each other in silence, but when the waiter cleared his throat and snapped them out of their thoughts, he wished it had lasted longer.

"Do you wish to drink more champagne, sir?" he asked Natsu while he was serving their food.

"Will that be also free?"

Now he really was ashamed of him. That was just shameless! He opened his mouth to apologize to the waiter, but when he saw him smiling widely, he closed it again.

"Yes, sir, we opened a whole bottle of champagne for the customers of this table. If you don't drink it, we'd just have to throw it away. I will bring you the bottle right away."

Gray's jaw dropped as the waiter walked away. Who would order a whole bottle of champagne for two people? Did that guy want to make his girlfriend drunk and then propose because he was afraid she'd say no if she wasn't drunk? He shook his head and eyed his food. It looked delicious, but he was going to eat with knife and fork. He was not good at eating with knife and fork, but somehow he would manage to get the food inside his mouth. He saw Natsu awkwardly holding his cutlery and knew he wasn't the only one. This would be embarrassing for the both of them.

When the waiter came back with the bottle of champagne inside a bucket of ice, they had only managed to take a few bites of their meal. He placed the bucket on a small side table, bowed and wanted to leave again, when Natsu spoke up.

"Excuse me, why do I have a quarter lemon on my escalope?"

"You can press out the juice over the meat, spreading the droplets all over it. It tastes good, please try it. Alternatively it can be eaten with sauce. If I should bring you sauce, please ring this bell-" he pointed to a small button in the wall near the stairs "-and I'll come here. Please enjoy your meal."

He bowed and went down the stairs.

Natsu wanted to follow the orders of the waiter and took the lemon in his hand. He obviously had the wrong idea of 'pressing out the juice', as he just squashed the lemon completely, shooting jets of lemon juice in different directions, also in Gray's. It splashed all over his face, a droplet finding its way into his right eye, making him whine. Natsu jerked, uttered a few _sorry, sorry's_ , picked up his napkin and leaned over the table, his left hand cupping Gray's chin to hold him in place and his right hand wiping away the juice with the napkin from his face.

When the pain in his right eye subsided and he opened his eyes again, Gray saw Natsu's face only a few centimeters away, eyeing him attentively, searching for lemon juice that he hadn't wiped yet. Natsu's gaze wandered up to meet Gray's eyes and both of them held their breath. Their eyes were heavy with emotion, shouting out the love they felt for each other, begging the other to _realize_ what they were feeling.

"Are you okay, sires? I heard a pained whine and I thought I'd better check-" when the waiter reached their booth and saw which position they were in, he blushed heavily. "Uh... I- I'll better... so- sorry for interrupting!" He stumbled down the stairs again.

* * *

Natsu sighed, let go of Gray's face and leaned back in his chair again. Why did they always have to be interrupted in such moments? He was trying to convey his love here! He found that just blurting out 'I love you' seemed to be not an option, as his throat clenched when he wanted to say it and he felt a nervous tingle in his stomach that left him unable to utter a word. He was about to say it a dozen times already throughout the evening, but he always found himself unable to really do it. Why was it so hard to confess his love even if he already knew it wasn't one-sided?

So he figured he'd convey his feelings by actions. He had wanted to take Gray's hand while they were walking or just push him against the nearest wall and kiss him or hug him so tightly that Gray _had_ to notice how he was feeling... but he hadn't found the courage to do any of this. Even when they were staring in each other's eyes, saying a million things to each other that words couldn't express, he found it near impossible to act. He had wanted to caress Gray's face just now before the waiter had interrupted them, but he hadn't found the courage yet. He was growing desperate. He wanted to become a couple with Gray, wanted to show him how much he loved him day by day... But his clumsiness was getting in the way. Why couldn't he just lean over the table and kiss Gray? Why couldn't he reach over the table and caress his cheeks?

He had decided to get drunk, maybe that would make him forget his shyness. He was just about to reach out for the bottle of champagne when Gray took his glass and downed it in one go. He smiled. Maybe he wasn't the only one who wanted to loosen up with alcohol. He grabbed the bottle and poured himself and Gray another glass of champagne.

He emptied also this glass in one gulp. Gray had emptied half of his. Natsu sighed again. If both of them didn't know how to take the first step, then at least he wanted to spend the evening talking about meaningless things instead of awkward silence. So he started talking about the mission. Gray seemed to be relieved and joined in.

Eventually they even debated on whether or not Lucy and Erza were a couple, laughing and joking comfortably, like nothing between him and Gray had happened. Well, nothing had happened, but he was sure that both of them had noticed that there was _something_ going on between them. He found that this was already a small success, even if it didn't turn out quite the way he wanted, but it was a beginning. If he could take small steps like today, it would eventually evolve into a relationship.

When the waiter brought their bill, Natsu insisted on paying everything, which left Gray grumbling and the waiter amused. When he wished them a nice evening, he secretly winked and showed thumbs-up to Natsu when Gray was already busy with getting up from his chair. Natsu smiled back and nodded slightly. Even the waiter had noticed there was something going on.

They spent half of their way home in comfortable silence. But one question had been nagging at Natsu since the incident with _Becca_. He knew it was stupid and he hoped that he already knew the answer but he couldn't be sure until he asked...

"Hey, Gray..."

"Yeah?"

"D- do you think you're bisexual... or gay?"

"I haven't really thought about that... But I guess I'm gay, since I am not interested in women at all."

"Then you're interested in guys? I mean besides the one you love?"

"Hmm... I don't know. I'm never really paying attention to anyone besides... _him..._ "

"So... that means... you're still a virgin?"

Gray eyed him suspiciously and didn't answer for quite a while. Natsu thought that maybe he had overstepped and was close to apologizing when Gray answered with a quiet voice.

"Yeah... I want to have sex only with the one I've been in love with for almost my whole life... I- I mean... after we... uh... if we become a couple..."

Natsu sighed with relief. _I'm sure we will become a couple eventually..._

They spent the rest of the evening in silence, busy with their own thoughts.

When they lay in bed, their hands ended up so close to each other that Natsu could feel the coldness Gray's skin was radiating. But neither of them found the courage to reach out and so they fell asleep without their hands touching each other.


	5. Nightmare

When Gray woke up the next morning, the first thing his sleepy mind noticed was that both his hands were encompassing something warm. He wondered what it could be, so he moved his hands slightly and found that this thing was not only warm, but also soft. And it had fingers. Five, to be exact. The only logical explanation was that it was a hand he was holding. Why was there a warm hand in-between his?

When realization hit him, he jerked awake and snapped his hands back. He sat upright in his bed and stared at Natsu's hand. It had not even been close to Gray's side. In fact it was lying close to the face of the fire mage. While sleeping he had reached over with both hands and had taken the hand of his best friend in his, intertwining their fingers. His heart was racing. He hoped Natsu hadn't woken up since then and noticed what he had done.

The hand of the Dragon Slayer made grasping movements but it didn't find what it was searching for. He let out a disappointed sigh and cuddled his hand up to his face. Then he let out a content sigh and murmured something Gray couldn't understand, try as he might. He couldn't help but smile and continue staring at his sleeping best friend. It was just too cute.

After some minutes, Natsu's cozy dream seemed to be changing into something unpleasant. His facial expression changed from smiling into something sour. He stirred uncomfortably, letting out displeased sounds. Gray wondered what he was dreaming about.

* * *

Just a few moments ago he and Gray had been cuddled together, kissing, naked and about to lose their virginity to each other, the person they loved. It had been perfect.

Then a naked woman had entered the room and suddenly the room around them had morphed into something else. Where they had been lying on a comfortable mattress before was now a cold and rough tarred floor. Where there had been white curtains before were now flat tiles and iron chains.

The woman ripped them apart, threw Natsu to the floor and created an iron prison around him. He tried to fight the bars but they were too strong and for some reason he couldn't use his magic. She tied Gray up with handcuffs and inspected his body thoroughly.

"You're already that hard, good boy. This is gonna be fun." She laughed wickedly. Then she strode over to Natsu's cage and eyed him with a conceited smile. He recognized her face. It was Becca.

"And you better watch closely as I make mine what should be yours, Salamander."

He tried to shout, but nothing came out of his mouth. Gray watched in horror as she came closer again. She leaned down and stroked his erection hard and quick. He couldn't hold back a moan but he was glancing over to Natsu in horror. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing besides moans came out.

Becca slowly lowered herself onto him, positioning herself so that Gray's erection could slide into her without problems. Gray's mouth was wide open in a silent scream for help that never came out. His cock was already touching the sensitive skin-

-when he was slapped hard in the face and jerked awake. He saw Gray sitting on the bed beside him, a worried expression on his face and his flat hand still lifted, ready to slap him again.

"Whoa! Stop, I'm awake!" he exclaimed. His heart was beating rapidly, his body trembling heavily and he had a sour taste in his mouth. He was in sheer panic due to the aftermath of his lively dream. Gray seemed to be relieved that he was awake and lowered his hand.

"You had me worried, idiot. Saying 'no, no, no' and 'hands off' and 'bitch' and some other things that I couldn't understand. I tried to wake you up for some minutes now, but you didn't react on anything and your dream seemed to become more and more uncomfortable, so I figured I'd try to slap you awake if nothing else helped..."

Natsu gulped. He was ready to vomit but he didn't want to do so while Gray could listen, so he tried to control it.

"Thank you... it was a really terrible dream..."

"I could guess. What was it about? Did you dream of being... forced?"

Natsu hesitated. Telling Gray the whole truth was not an option right now... but lying to him was neither.

"So- something like that..."

"Well... whatever it was, it's not real, it's over now."

Gray thankfully didn't push the topic and was trying to comfort him... And in a way he was right; the dream was not real... _not yet..._ it hadn't felt like just any dream. It had felt so real and he had a _real_ bad feeling about this. He would have to be careful. If they ever met that offensive woman again, he wouldn't take his eyes off Gray for one second. He'd protect his mate from whatever harm there was to come. Plus he was greedy. He wouldn't tolerate somebody else touching his mate.

"Yeah..."

Natsu got up from bed and refreshed himself in the bathroom by splashing cool water in his face. He couldn't let the nightmare get the best of him. Plus he already had an idea for the next step of his love plan and he didn't want to let negative feelings get in the way. He straightened himself and went back to the bedroom.

* * *

"Hey, ice princess. Yesterday I overheard people talking about a festival in this town. Wanna go there with me today after our work finished?"

Gray eyed Natsu suspiciously. This sounded like a _date..._ again. His heartbeat quickened at the thought.

"When did you overhear that?"

Why couldn't he just say 'yes, let's go'? That was what he originally wanted to answer, but the words just didn't come out like planned.

"Yesterday in the restaurant. A couple was talking about it, it sounded like fun. And it seems like there are many food stalls!"

He sighed. Food, of course...

"So? You wanna go or not?"

"You'll make me go anyway, right?"

A shadow crossed Natsu's face and then he quickly closed the distance between them, hopped on the bed so that he was sitting right in front of him and grabbed Gray's shoulders. He looked right into his eyes.

"Listen... I think you've got the wrong idea of me... Even if I sometimes seem to be inconsiderate about many things and also about the feelings and opinions of my friends... I do care... It's just... not my character to _show_ such things. But I care about your opinion. If you don't want to go, then we won't go, easy as that. So, do you want to go there with me or not?"

Gray's heart was racing uncontrollably and he was sure his face was blushed heavily. Coming from Natsu, this had sounded nearly like a love confession. He gulped and tried to keep his voice steady.

"O- okay... let's go then."

Natsu smiled happily. Then he picked up his clothes and headed to the bathroom again. Before entering, Natsu looked over to Gray one last time.

"I'm looking forward to it, snowflake." Then he closed the bathroom door and Gray was left alone in their bedroom.

He let himself fall back on the mattress, one hand clenched into the fabric over his rapidly beating heart and the other arm covering his eyes. His head spun. Natsu's voice had sounded so genuine. _'I care about your opinion. I'm looking forward to it, snowflake.'_ He only barely managed to fight back the tears that threatened to well up as realization slowly dawned on him.

 _"I also don't like to see you cry..."_  
 _"I've also run from my feelings way too long and I finally noticed that's not the way to go. I'll act on it, make him fall in love with me."_  
 _"Because you're Gray. You're strong, clever, good-looking, charming, funny, sexy, adorable... you're just the type to make somebody fall in love easily..."_  
 _"How about we eat dinner at some restaurant today?"_  
 _"Nope, we're going alone. You've got a problem with that, popsicle?"_  
 _"Somewhere you can spend a nice evening." - "You mean, like a date, eh?" - "Something like that, yeah."_  
 _"I swear if she tries something fishy on you, I don't know if I can control myself."_

Could it really be true? Was it really _him_ Natsu was in love with? Had Natsu romanced him since... when exactly? Since when was Natsu treating him so kindly? They hadn't fought with each other since they went on this mission together... But while playing Truth or Dare, Natsu had claimed he wasn't sure whether or not he was in love... and shortly after that, Gray had run away, refusing to kiss the Dragon Slayer on his lips... Did he figure it out because of that? Had he been hurt by his refusal?

But then again, he was _Natsu._ He did all kind of stupid stuff all the time without thinking it was something unusual. But just some moments he had claimed that he was far more considerate than what everybody thought of him. Was Natsu really trying to woo him? If yes, he did a damn good job. If not... well, then he still did a damn good job unknowingly...

Now that the idea of Natsu being in love with him had settled down in his head, he felt the pressing urge to find out if it was true. If it wasn't true... he'd figure out later what he would do in that case... But if it really was true, _god_ would he be happy! He decided that, starting now, he would throw himself into it. He'd take every chance to flirt with Natsu, get closer to him or even tease him.

When he heard the handle of the bathroom door being pulled down, he spontaneously jumped out of bed and stretched his body thoroughly, exposing his muscular body to Natsu while pretending he hadn't noticed that his friend had entered the bedroom. After some moments he heard a chuckle.

"You can use the bathroom when you're finished with your morning gymnastics."

He turned around and saw Natsu leaning against the door frame and watching him with a lewd grin. Shit, that was hot. He wanted to retort, but he couldn't come up with anything. Instead he just blushed, fetched his clothes and strode to the bathroom door, snarled a "pervert" to Natsu in passing, earned an "exhibitionist stripper" in return and slammed the door shut.

He sighed. It was pointless to tease Natsu when he wasn't at all prepared for the reactions and would end up shying away from him. He didn't know what kind of reaction he had anticipated, but Natsu grinning lewdly at him was something he had never dreamed of.

He felt his member grow hard in his pants and cursed under his breath. There was no way he'd jerk off now, with Natsu listening. He would just have to wait until his arousal subsided.

"Hey, ice princess? I'm gonna leave, we're actually a bit late, please don't take too long, I'll tell Erza you'll be there soon."

He heard the door open and close and then the faint sound of somebody running down the corridor. He smirked. Had Natsu smelled his arousal and done that on purpose? Or were they really late? He had completely forgotten to check the watch after he had woken up. He had been too distracted...

Gray stripped completely naked in less than a second and entered the shower cabin. He didn't bother to turn on the water before touching himself - Natsu wouldn't be able to listen anyway. He closed his eyes as pleasure spread in his body and let his back sink against the cold tiles, kneading the sensible tip of his penis. Pre-cum was already leaking, so he spread it around the tip and along the shaft and began stroking up and down slowly. He imagined Natsu doing it.

His daydream quickly evolved into hot sex with the fire Dragon Slayer and he started humping in his hand rather than just stroking himself.

"Naahh... ttsuu... ngghhh..."

After a few more quick movements, he reached his climax, shooting his hot seed against his bare chest and stomach, coating his hand in white sticky fluid.

When his breath had evened out, he took a quick shower and got ready for the day.

But when he arrived at their meeting point, he found only Natsu waiting, smiling apologetically at him.

"Sorry, I misread the clock; you are punctual to the minute."

Then he winked at him. Gray blushed and punched him hard on the shoulder.

 _That cocky bastard!_

They ended up brawling and when the two girls and Happy approached them, Erza beat them up for not obeying her prohibition to fight.

For the rest of their working day she made sure that Natsu and Gray didn't even have the chance to do as much as looking at each other for more than one second.


	6. Festival

When they arrived at their hotel room, Natsu urged Gray to get ready quickly; he wanted to head to the festival as soon as possible. Gray wondered if they would be going out alone also today. He had just jumped to conclusions earlier that day, thinking of it as a date, but Natsu hadn't mentioned anything about whether they were going alone or with the girls and Happy. So he would just have to find out.

"Will the two of us go there alone?" he asked as Natsu stepped out of the bathroom.

"Yeah," Natsu answered with a grin.

"Are you taking me out on a date?" Gray winked, suddenly feeling brave.

"Maybe, ice princess," Natsu said with a cocky smile.

Gray quickly averted his eyes and dropped his head to hide his blush. Not a second later he scolded himself for his girlish behavior. If he was going to flirt with Natsu, he should really prepare for Natsu flirting back... or at least teasing him. And if he was going to blush, he shouldn't hide it. That was also a part of flirting: letting the other know how much his actions affected you.

He pulled himself together and quickly got ready for the festival.

Surprisingly they didn't need to ask for the way. Natsu knew the rough direction and before long they could see the bright colors of the neon lights illuminating the night sky above the town. It looked really big and Gray was feeling a thrill of anticipation when he thought about all the fun things he could do there with Natsu.

"Whoa! They even have a giant wheel! I wanna ride that!" Gray exclaimed in childish joy. He'd loved fairy ground rides since he was a little child. The memories made him feel warm and secure. He didn't notice Natsu's fond look - he was too caught up in his memories.

* * *

Gray had unconsciously sped up; he obviously wanted to reach the festival ground as soon as possible. Natsu smiled privately. He had chosen the perfect place for their date. Seeing his friend this happy made his heart overflow with joy.

Judging by his behavior, Gray had been on this kind of festivals sometimes in his childhood. His eyes gleamed happily and Natsu pictured a young Gray dragging his parents or his beloved teacher Ur from one fairy ground ride to the next, always demanding that they ride it with him.

Natsu knew that it was soon _that time_ of the year again. He didn't really know how Gray spent the anniversary of his family's death nowadays. He'd been avoiding meeting the ice mage on _that day_ since the incident 9 years ago despite having erased his memory. He'd always subconsciously known he should not approach Gray on these days... Sometimes he'd taken solo missions to avoid him, sometimes he'd just stayed away from the guild and last year he'd challenged Cana to a drinking duel the evening before the anniversary, so his memories of the following day were all hazy and unclear. His guild mates had told him that he'd spent most of the day passing out and regaining consciousness over and over again and in the time he was conscious he'd just been blabbering nonsense.

This year would be different. He would spend the day with Gray and be there for him. He had every intention of confessing his feelings before that day. He wouldn't leave Gray's side, and even if he couldn't ease his pain, he would still show him that he was there for him.

Natsu was snapped out of his thoughts when they arrived at the festival. He was overwhelmed by the crowd of people. Normally he didn't like the smells of hundreds of people at once, but on festivals like these they usually smelled like joy and love. It was a rather nice scent and it made him happy as well.

Gray didn't waste any time. He grabbed Natsu's wrist and led him to the nearest fairy ground ride: a roller coaster. A high one. Dangerous looking. With three loopings. Oh god.

Natsu had prepared for this. He'd expected as much, so he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and hadn't drunk anything for some hours. He was prepared to face his motion sickness and fight it back in order to make Gray smile.

"I wanna ride this, please come with me! I'll pay for the both of us!"

Natsu didn't trust his voice; he was already feeling a bit nauseous. The pleading look Gray was giving him was just too cute. It made his heart race despite the bad feeling in his gut. So he just nodded and let himself be dragged up the stairs and inside the front car of the roller coaster. _Ugh. Did it really have to be the first row in the first car?_

When his legs were captured between the lap bar and the seat, Natsu started to panic internally. How should he get this over with without vomi-

"Hey, Natsu."

He gulped and tried to make a neutral face when looking over to Gray.

"Y- yeah?"

"I've been to fairy grounds only twice in my life... the first time was with my parents when I was four and the second time was with Ur and Lyon when I'd just turned six. Those two days were two of the happiest in my life. Being with the people who are most important to me, having fun together - it's everything I need to be happy."

"Gray..."

"I am happy now. Thank you, Natsu."

The fond smile Gray was giving him and the things he'd said made Natsu blush and heat surging through his body. He'd completely forgotten about their surroundings. Only Gray was important, his face, his eyes, his words. If he'd been able to reach out and kiss Gray, he was sure he'd done it now for sure. But the security bars were holding him back.

They stared intensely at each other for a moment, but then the car sped up quickly and they were going down. Natsu hadn't even noticed they had gone up in the first place. Gray averted his eyes, threw up his hands and shouted in joy. Natsu barely noticed some of the other people behind them screaming as well; he was only focusing on Gray. Even though his stomach felt like it was being kicked around in his body like a football, he didn't feel sick in the slightest. Not while the love of his life looked the most happy he had ever seen him be.

When the car stopped and the security bars were removed, Natsu sighed in disappointment, because Gray's expression was slowly changing back to normal. He'd never forget the expression of pure bliss on his best friend's face.

"Hey, flame brain, what are you daydreaming about? Get out," Gray mocked, smiling, and pushed Natsu towards the exit.

The next hour went by the same scheme; Gray saw a roller coaster or another fairy ground ride, made Natsu ride with him and enjoyed it fully while Natsu enjoyed the view of his best friend who didn't seem to notice even once that he was being stared at. Natsu's motion sickness hadn't kicked in so far. He'd been to fairy grounds before and he knew that he got motion sick on these fairy ground rides - why wasn't he now? Was Gray his cure?

When they reached the giant wheel, Gray was unstoppable and so they found themselves in a cabin together. Only the two of them. They sat on opposite benches, facing each other. When the cabin started to move slowly, Gray let out a small happy sigh.

"The giant wheel was always the last fairy ground ride of the day. It's beautiful to see the whole fairy ground and all the places you've been before from above."

 _So, that's it then. This is the last ride._ Natsu felt strangely sad about this. He averted his eyes and let them wander, over all the attractions and food stalls and people on the fairy ground. They hadn't even reached the highest point and yet the people were already so small. Everything was so far away, so unimportant. It was only him and Gray now and nothing else mattered. This thought made him feel light-headed and he returned his attention to Gray.

The ice mage was staring out of the window, lost in his thoughts. Natsu briefly wondered what he might be thinking about when he smelled salt. A second later he saw a single tear running down Gray's cheeks. His heart clenched painfully; he didn't want Gray to cry, not on this special day.

He was moving without thinking, getting up and sitting down on the bench next to Gray, so close that their sides were pressed together, then put his right arm around Gray's shoulders and with his left hand he wiped away the tear from his friend's face.

"Shhh, please don't cry, I'm here for you, you're not alone..."

This somehow made Gray cry even more. It was too much for Natsu to bear, so he pulled Gray in a tight embrace with his head resting against Natu's chest. His right hand was slowly stroking the incredibly soft hair and his left stroked Gray's shoulder blades soothingly.

Natsu knew it was inevitable that Gray would think about his parents and his teacher when he had such strong memories connected with a fairy ground. It was only logical that he would become sad and also start crying over the happy memory and the sad fact that they were no longer in this world and he could never see them again.

He just hoped it would be enough to hold him close and show him how much he cared for him and that he wouldn't leave him alone. No, he would never again leave Gray alone. He'd made that mistake far too often in the past.

When their cabin passed the entryway for the first time, he distantly noticed some people whispering about two boys hugging, two girls even yelped delightedly when they saw the two of them.

On their way up the wheel stopped turning and the people at the ground got off and new ones entered. It was then when Gray's sobbing subsided and he felt two strong arms closing around his body.

Natsu pulled him even closer. He noticed how Gray's scent slowly changed from sad to nervous and anxious but at the same time happy and content and _so in love._

Now would be the perfect moment to confess or just _do something._ Natsu took a deep breath.

Then he let go of Gray, earning him a confused and disappointed look.

"There's something... I want to tell you..."

Gray's look and scent changed to curious and hopeful. He urged him to go on with a slight nod.

"I... uh... y- you know I don't hate you... Ah... I mean, usually we're fighting and especially the two weeks before we went on this mission, I was a bit... aggressive," he gulped. Gray stared at him in disbelief.

"I'm really sorry for my behavior... I know you suffered, I'm not blind, but even though I knew that I just couldn't help myself... It won't happen again. I, uh, I mean, I'm sure we'll still fight with each other, that's just... how we are, but I never meant to really hurt you..."

 _What the hell am I saying? Just say 'I love you'._

"Gray... I..." _love you._ _Come on, it's just two more words!_ "uh..." _I. Love. You. Concentrate. It's not that hard, it's just a few words._ "I... want you to know that I always considered you my best friend."

 _Stupid scaredy-cat! Why is it so incredibly difficult to say these three words?_

* * *

Gray noticed with disappointment that Natsu wasn't going to say more. For a second he had let himself believe that Natsu was about to confess his love. He gulped. Was Natsu just too scared or... was the person he loved somebody else? He had to find out, and soon. Knowing that Natsu _was_ in love and not knowing _whom_ he was in love with was slowly killing him. He'd found that blurting out 'I love you' wasn't an option for him. He had already tried to say it multiple times in last days, but every time a lump in his throat had prevented him from talking.

He needed to find another way to convey his feelings. Was it okay to hug Natsu out of the blue? Would Natsu notice his quick pulse? _Fuck it. He's supposed to notice. That's the point of it after all._

"Natsu..."

And with that he leaned in, wrapped his arms around Natsu and cuddled his head against his shoulder. He heard him gasp, but after a few seconds he sighed contedly and hugged back.

With his head pressed so close to Natsu's body, Gray noticed he wasn't the only one whose pulse was elevated. Warmth spread through his body like waves when he imagined Natsu being just as madly in love with him as he was with Natsu.

They spent the rest of their ride motionless in the arms of each other, both of them content with their current situation but also too scared to take the next step.

When somebody cleared their throat close to them, they immediately let go of each other, jumped to their feet and left the cabin in a hurry. On their way back into the crowd their eyes met for a split second and they both looked to their feet to hide their heavy blush.

They didn't talk even after they'd reached the crowd, though both didn't really know where they were heading. There was not much choice anyway; the crowd forced them to go in the same direction as everyone else. They two mages were pressed against bodies in all directions and Natsu felt as though he didn't have enough space to breathe.

Gray was always right before him, glancing back to make sure Natsu was still there every few seconds.

After one or two minutes, somebody elbowed Natsu from the left. At first he'd thought it was Gray who was teasing him, but just one second ago he'd seen Gray ahead of him; and it really hurt so he turned left to find the culprit and complain.

However, after some seconds of scanning the people closest to him, he found that it was near impossible to identify the one who had elbowed him, so he sighed and gave up.

When his eyes searched for Gray in the crowd again, he couldn't find him – the people who'd been around Gray were still there but Gray seemed to have vanished. Natsu momentarily panicked.

"GRAAAAY!" he needed to shout to drown out the noise.

The people around him turned their heads towards him, but Natsu didn't care. Finding Gray was important right now and nothing else.

"GRAAAAAAAY!"

"NATSUUUU"

The crowd was moving to make way for the two people who were shouting for each other. A second later Natsu saw Gray heading towards him.

"Natsu! Sorry, I couldn't control where I was going..."

Natsu smiled in relief. He grabbed Gray's wrist.

"It's okay, you're back now. I won't let go of you in this crowd anymore."

He could see Gray blushing crimson, but he didn't avert his eyes. He smiled shyly and wanted to resume walking, but Natsu had other plans; he pulled Gray with him, out of the crowd to a place between two stalls, where they could stand without being in the way of dozens of people. They even had some privacy there; nobody would hear them over the noise of some thousands of people. Plus nobody would bother to pay attention to them.

Natsu leaned in close to Gray's ear so that he didn't need to shout.

"Let's buy something to eat somewhere. I'm so hungry!"

"Me too. What do you want to eat?"

"I don't care, just anything."

"Okay... Hey, Natsu?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did you need to shout my name to find me? Couldn't you just... I don't know; track me... uh, with your nose?"

Natsu smiled.

"I could smell _that_ you were somewhere close, but not _where exactly_ you were... In such places there are thousands of smells and it's nearly impossible to tell where they are coming from. Plus stressed people smell so bad..." he turned up his nose and then continued in a much lower volume, blushing. "But you smell good..."

"What did you say? I didn't hear-"

Natsu had thrown himself in Gray's arms, effectively silencing him.

"I said-" he was so close to Gray now that he was nearly kissing his earlobe. "-that you smell good."

He heard Gray gasp, then felt his strong arms tighten their grip around his torso to pull him in even closer. Both buried their faces in the crook of the neck of the other.

Standing there like this, hugging so closely, they must've looked like a real couple. And they were about to become a _real couple,_ Natsu thought happily.

Gray smelled like love, happiness, but at the same time nervous and afraid. He hadn't figured out yet, then. At least he wasn't sure yet. And how could he possibly be sure if Natsu didn't tell him unmistakably whom he was in love with? He didn't want to make the both of them wait any longer, he longed for the feel of Gray's lips on his, he craved to touch every part of Gray's body he could possibly reach so much it hurt.

So he disentangled from their hug resolutely, gripped Gray by the shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes.

Gray was caught by surprise by Natsu's sudden movements. He staggered a bit, but regained his balance quickly. Their faces were so close to each other... If he just leaned in a bit, the tips of their noses would touch...

Natsu took in a deep breath and opened his mouth to say something. But in the same moment his stomach let out a very loud growl that could be heard despite the noise around them. Natsu's eyes opened wide, a blush spread on his beautiful face and his hands let go of Gray's shoulders to hold his stomach.

Even though Gray was a bit disappointed that their special moment had ended like this, he couldn't help but laugh. This was just so typical of Natsu.

"Come on; let's get you something to eat. If you starve to death while being with me, Erza's gonna kill me."

Without waiting for an answer, he took Natsu's hand in his, intertwining their fingers. He didn't give Natsu or himself enough time to even think about what he'd just done and just dragged him along back into the crowd of people.

He headed for the closest food stall, which sold Chinese food. They kept holding hands while waiting in the row until it was their turn to order.

When the salesperson noticed they were holding hands, he arched an eyebrow in disbelief and disgust. Feeling embarrassed, Gray wanted to let go of Natsu's hand - but was surprised that Natsu clenched his hand even tighter and shot the man a challenging look. He didn't comment on it, just shook his head and prepared their food, obviously caught off-guard by Natsu's defiance. Natsu only let go of his hand when he needed to pay.

They ate their food in silence, avoiding eye contact as both of them didn't know how to handle this situation.

They'd just hugged each other closely, Natsu had even confessed that he liked Gray's scent, they'd held hands even when it hadn't been necessary any more - it should have been so obvious to both of them what was going on. Only that Gray still had doubts. He knew how passionate Natsu was towards his friends. Though he had never seen him holding hands with any of them, but still... He'd declared that Gray was his 'best friend', so maybe it was just something Natsu considered normal between best friends. Or maybe he'd smelled that Gray would like to hug and hold hands and had just decided to give it to him without even knowing what that _meant._ Hell, he didn't even know anything about sex, so why would he know something like _this?_ Yeah, Natsu had told him that he knew now whom he was in love with, but that didn't necessarily mean he knew how _everything related to love_ worked, right?

Gray distantly noted that they'd both finished eating and that Natsu was holding out his hand with an inviting gesture. He didn't get it at all and just ended up staring at his hand for a long moment. Natsu sighed and reached for the waste in his hands, retrieving it and went to the nearest bin to throw it away.

Upon reaching Gray again, he just took his hand, intertwined their fingers like it was already normal to do so and pulled Gray back to the place where they'd been before.

Natsu even grabbed his shoulders again, clearly ready to say something, when a bright light illuminated the festival grounds and shortly after, a loud bang could be heard.

Natsu averted his eyes and as soon as he understood where the sound was coming from, his eyes lit up in childish joy.

"Fireworks! Gray, they're making fireworks!"

But Gray couldn't find it in himself to look up and share Natsu's joy over the firework. The sight of his best friend's delighted face was just too beautiful. He'd be damned if he wasted even a fraction of a second of it. And besides, he could see the reflection of the fireworks in Natsu's eyes.

"Natsu..."

He hadn't really meant to speak, but he found that he couldn't hold back what he was about to say any longer.

Natsu focused his eyes back on him and Gray forgot to breathe for some seconds. Natsu's hands were still on his shoulders.

"Natsu, your eyes..." he gulped, suddenly extremely nervous.

The expression of his best friend was hopeful and warm and if he didn't imagine things, also full of love. He gathered all his courage to take this a step further.

"They're beautiful..." he gulped. "Just like the rest of you. You're so beautiful..."

Natsu was so close to him. And now he was pulling Gray even closer. The fond expression on Natsu's face made him burst with happiness. Now he was sure, now he knew that Natsu's heart belonged to him and nobody else. ' _The one and only person I'll spend the rest of my life with... Igneel said it's fate.'_ Fate. Rest of their lives. Together. Gray nearly fainted at the realization.

Natsu had stopped in his movements, giving Gray a questioning and hopeful look. They were so close; Gray could already feel Natsu's breath tickling his lips. How could he not have noticed until now that this was more than okay?

He nodded faintly, then started leaning in closer. His eyes fluttered shut and their lips would meet any moment - when he was hit hard in the back and shoved towards Natsu. Their lips crashed against each other and it was nothing like he had wanted his first kiss to be; it hurt, their lips were mashed by their teeth and he stumbled helplessly into Natsu's arms. They lost their balance and fell to the floor, Gray over Natsu and the person who had caused all this mess landed on Gray.

Gray believed he tasted blood, but he didn't really care at this moment. All he could think about was whether Natsu was alright and that he was going to give the culprit hell. He pushed the one above him roughly away, then quickly got to his feet and helped Natsu get up. After he made sure that his friend wasn't hurt, he furiously turned around to face the culprit - and froze.

Just then he heard two voices close to the culprit.

"Erzaaaaaaaaaa! We were searching for you!"

"Ayeeeee!"


	7. Confessions

The five of them had spent the rest of the evening together. Apparently, Erza had just had some beers and was tipsy. She had searched for Lucy and Happy when she recognized Gray and Natsu. While approaching them, _somebody had tripped her_ and she had _accidentally_ stumbled into them. At least that's what she had told them.

The evening turned out to be quite fun, watching the fireworks with his closest friends. However, spending it alone with Natsu would have been far better. And if Erza hadn't interrupted them so brutally, the evening could have become the best of his life so far. Like this, it only left him with a sour feeling towards Erza that he had a hard time hiding, and a slowly fading ache in his upper lip where his skin had been broken. He refused to let this incident count as their first kiss.

Now that they had finally reached their hotel, Gray couldn't wait to be alone with Natsu again. Would they continue where they had been interrupted earlier? He was going to make sure they did. He couldn't wait any longer - he had already been waiting most of his life for this to happen.

They were about to bid each other good night when Erza interrupted him before he could even say a word.

"Gray, please come with us for a minute."

"Wha- why?"

"It's important. Just come, it won't take too long."

"Can't that wait until-"

 _"No, it cannot wait."_

If it wasn't for the evil face Erza made, Gray would never have given in. Like this, he didn't have much of a choice, really.

He gave Natsu a quick nod, then followed Erza, Lucy, and Happy to their room.

* * *

After Natsu had closed the door of their room, he let out a long-suffering sigh.

It had been so close. They had nearly kissed - well, they _had kissed,_ but that didn't really count. He sighed again. Natsu wasn't sure how he should act around Gray once he came back to their room. He was pretty sure he couldn't muster the courage to just continue what they had been about to do before Erza interrupted. He briefly wondered what Erza was going to tell Gray, but he figured that Gray would tell him eventually. There was nothing to worry about and there were more important matters at hand to take care of. Somehow he was even a bit relieved for the extra time he had to think of a good strategy... Or maybe not. Planning something like this always went wrong, as the past few days had shown him.

Why was it so hard? They loved each other. Gray loved Natsu and Natsu loved Gray. Easy. They should just confess to each other, become a couple, and then spend the rest of their days happily together. In theory it all sounded so easy.

Natsu ruffled through his hair with both hands. Then he went straight to the bathroom, leaving the bathroom door ajar and splashed his face with some cold water from the tap.

He decided he just needed a bit practice to get over his nervousness. So he looked up to the mirror and took a deep breath.

"I love you."

That hadn't been so difficult. But saying it to his own reflection was kind of weird. He should practice saying it to Gray, not to himself. So he sat down on the cold tiled bathroom floor and closed his eyes. He imagined Gray being right in front of him, looking at him expectantly. His heart sped up immediately. His imaginary Gray raised an eyebrow, urging him to say something. He took a deep breath.

"Gray... I... I'm in love with you."

* * *

"What did you want to talk about?" Gray asked as soon as the hotel room door was closed.

On the way, Lucy had suddenly remembered 'something important to do' and had dragged Happy along with her. This was starting to get strange.

Erza turned to face him. Her expression was serious and worried.

"Gray... I just wanted you to know that... if things go wrong with Natsu, you can always come to us and we'll be there for you."

Gray blinked incredulously. Talking with Erza about his feelings was something he had never expected to happen. He had never thought about talking to _anybody_ about his feelings towards Natsu. Nobody was supposed to know in the first place. How Erza had figured it out, he really didn't know. He always thought he did a good job hiding his feelings.

But here they were and even though it was a bit uncomfortable being confronted with his own feelings by another person, he was also thankful. Talking sometimes helped, people said. Maybe he should try it for once. Erza was one of his closest friends, so why the hell not? Maybe she could take away some of his nervousness.

He opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn't think of an appropriate answer. Erza seemed to notice his hesitance. She gave him an understanding smile and motioned towards the only chair in the room while she was sitting down on her bed. Gray reached for the chair, turned it towards the bed, and took a seat.

"So. You're surprised I figured out your feelings for Natsu." A quick nod. "Well, it wasn't that hard to figure out. At the beginning, when we were still kids, I thought you two really hated each other. I mean, the first thing you did when you two met was fight. Later I noticed that fighting and insulting is just your own way of showing your friendship and trust to each other. And you are still behaving like this... I thought you'd grow out of it and become best friends without feeling the urge of beating the shit out of each other every time you meet." She laughed. "But you're Gray and he's Natsu, so I guess it was obvious that things wouldn't change."

She cleared her throat and her expression went back to serious. "Every time you think nobody is watching, you keep looking at Natsu and your expression always becomes softer. I can tell from the look in your eyes how much you long for him..."

Gray dropped his head to hide the heat coloring his cheeks. Had he really been that obvious? He swallowed, still not sure what he should say. There was nothing to add. What Erza said was true. He loved Natsu so much it hurt. He'd do nearly anything for Natsu. He trusted Natsu with his life.

"It wasn't only you I observed. Naturally I also wanted to know what he thought about you."

His head shot up immediately, making eye contact with Erza and silently urging her to go on.

"He also looked at you with the same expression whenever he thought nobody was watching."

Gray's breath hitched. He had never noticed Natsu staring at him.

"But then, after he was found unconscious in the hills near Magnolia, he changed. I'm not sure what happened between you two, or _if_ something happened in the first place. It just seemed like he had forgotten that he was in love with you, or maybe his love had faded away... He still stared at you sometimes, but he always looked confused. I felt so bad for you, seeing as you were still so in love with him. I couldn't do anything for you, so I just tried to stop your fighting whenever I got the chance. I didn't want you two to hurt each other physically when you already put each other through so much emotional pain."

She sighed. Gray's chest hurt at the thought that Natsu had at some point stopped loving him.

"However, since we defeated Tartaros, he started to behave strangely, especially towards you. I think he was in denial, but taking it out on you doesn't necessarily mean he's in love with you, it could just be that he's trying to distract himself from the person he's in love with... Uhm... And... I just wanted to let you know that you can always talk with me, or Lucy, or the both of us... I... I thought this mission would be a good opportunity to make you two talk with each other and finally settle things... And you seem to be getting along well these days, but you obviously haven't settled things yet... and... I just thought... if he rejects you- don't get me wrong, I hope he doesn't- but if he does... or if you aren't ready to talk about it yet and it gets too much, too painful being around him, and if you need a place to hide, to-"

Gray had crossed the distance between them in a quick stride and was now hugging Erza tightly. He felt incredibly thankful. Knowing he had somebody supporting him gave him strength and suddenly he couldn't wait to see Natsu again and set the record straight.

"Thank you, Erza. We were actually about to kiss before you stumbled into me."

He could hear her gasping.

"Oh- oh my _god!_ Sorry! I'm really-"

"It's okay, but right now I really want to see Natsu."

They let go of each other quickly, Erza looking apologetic. She gave him an encouraging nod and pushed him towards the door.

"Then go and make him yours!"

"I will."

He smiled and then hurried out of Erza's and to his and Natsu's shared hotel room.

Gray wasn't sure what he had expected when he returned to their room. Natsu sitting on their bed, waiting for him, maybe. Or Natsu taking a shower. Never would he have expected to find Natsu in the bathroom, talking with somebody. He hadn't even known that Natsu owned a mobile phone or a communication lacrima. Because it was highly unlikely that somebody else was with him in the bathroom. Plus Gray didn't hear anybody answer.

The fact _that_ Natsu was talking with somebody wasn't the problem; it was _what_ he was saying.

"... I love you... I- ... I want to... be with you always, forever... let's become a couple... yeah, I promise. It's you or nobody. Dragons mate for life..."

His blood ran cold. Natsu loved somebody else. Forever. He wouldn't ever be able to be with Natsu. Never.

He snapped. He didn't want to hear any more of this shit; he needed to get out of here.

* * *

A loud bang snapped Natsu out of his reverie. He had completely lost track of time. And more important, he also hadn't noticed anything around him anymore. The bang sounded like a slammed door. He quickly exited the bathroom and took in the scents.

Gray. Surprised. Angry. No, extremely angry. And hurt. _Shit._

Before he could even think about it, he was already outside the hotel, following the scent of Gray. He barely even noticed that everything around him was frozen. He sped up as much as he could.

When he had finally gotten into earshot, they were already deep in the adjacent forest - which was surprisingly not frozen.

"GRAAAY! STOP, PLEASE!"

And Gray really stopped. Natsu came to a halt a few meters away from him. Gray turned around to face him. His expression was blank.

"Why, Natsu? Can't you just leave me alone for once?"

"Gray... I'm so-"

"Sorry for what? Breaking my heart? For not having done it sooner? It's fine, I'll manage."

Seeing Gray like this hurt even more than seeing him angry. Natsu slowly stepped closer. He needed to set things straight.

"No it's not fine," he reached out for Gray and tried to grab his shoulders, but Gray smacked his hands hard before they could reach him. Now Gray's face was a grimace of anger.

 _"Don't you fucking dare to touch me."_

"Fine, sorry. But please listen to what I have to say."

Gray scowled. "I've already heard enough. Spare your breath for your lover; I'm not interested in what you've got to say."

"It's not-"

"Shut up!"

"But-"

 _"Go away!"_

"No, it's a mis-"

"I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Gray had taken up a fighting stance. And he was angry, really angry. Natsu didn't know what to do, he didn't want to fight. Gray was heartbroken because of some stupid misunderstanding and he just _wouldn't let him explain it_. He was desperate.

Natsu sank to his knees and bent over until he was on all fours. Then he lowered his head until his forehead nearly touched the grass.

* * *

Gray staggered. He didn't expect Natsu to kneel down and _beg._ Because that was what he was doing right now, wasn't it? His anger faded, confusion taking over instead. He gave up his fighting stance; Natsu had surrendered and he wasn't going to hit somebody defenseless.

"Please Gray... please listen to me, I want to explain everything."

He let out a shuddering breath. If Natsu went that far, throwing away his pride and begging him to listen, he should grant his wish. He didn't really want to hear Natsu telling him face to face that he was in love with somebody else, but his heart was already broken. It couldn't possibly get much worse.

He sighed, then went to the closest tree and sat down, leaning his back against the trunk for support.

"I'm listening."

Natsu came crawling closer and sat on the grass a few meters away from Gray, facing him.

"I wasn't talking to anybody in our bathroom. I was alone. I don't own any mobile phone or communication lacrima, you should know that."

"But then why-"

"I was practicing... I have tried to confess several times, but the words just wouldn't come out of my mouth... So I thought if I practiced saying them aloud, maybe it would become easier to say them to the one I love..."

When his brain had processed the information Natsu had just given him, his heart leaped. That meant Natsu hadn't confessed yet, it could still be him, he still had a chance, maybe-

Natsu sighed. "How much did you hear?"

"U- uh... j- just that you... you... I heard you confessing a- and saying that you wanted to stay with that person forever..."

Natsu smiled faintly.

"Yeah, that's the essential part of it. But there was much more... There _is_ much more I want to say. Will you listen to all of it, Gray?"

Natsu stared at him with such intensity it made his heart jump in his chest. He didn't trust his voice right now, so he just gulped and nodded.

"The moment I first saw you, it was like something clicked into place. Like you were everything I had been waiting for without even knowing that I _had_ _been_ waiting for something. I didn't understand what it meant back then, we were still so young. It felt like my whole world was just turning around you, I was always thinking about you, what you liked, what you hated, what clothes you wore, what food you were eating, what you liked to drink... I liked your stripping habit but at the same time hated it. I liked to see your beautiful body but I hated that other people could see it as well. I was always wondering if you liked the things I did and then I wondered why I even cared and purposely acted in a way you wouldn't like. Just to convince myself that I didn't let my actions be ruled by another person."

Natsu smiled to himself, no longer looking Gray in the eyes but at his hands, which were fidgeting nervously in his lap. Gray was glad he wasn't being observed right now. His face and neck were tingling hot and his eyes were glassy. He was biting his lip, refusing to let a tear fall.

"That was the reason why we fought so often. I was confused as hell. My heart was always beating faster when you were around and the closer you were, the more my pulse was racing. I tried to convince myself it was because my body was anticipating a fight and was providing enough adrenaline to win... But even after our fights were over, when we were both exhausted, my heart wouldn't calm down. And I always felt so hot inside when you were close to me. I could barely keep myself from reaching out and touching you. I didn't know what it meant, though. I knew you were special, I've never felt something like this before for anyone. I spent years fighting these emotions and at the same time wondering what they meant. It was a hard time..." He sighed.

"The one who finally made me realize what these feelings meant was Erza. It was when I was 10 years old on an early morning when there were only a few people in the guild hall. She forced me to follow her outside the guild into a small alley where we were alone. She was really scary. She told me I should behave nicer towards the person I love and when I asked her who that might be, she looked at me like I was the greatest idiot she's ever seen and just said 'Gray, of course'. And really, she was right. I _was_ probably the greatest idiot she's ever met. I spent the whole day thinking about what she had said and I came to the conclusion that she was right. I loved you with every fiber of my being. I always have, right from the very first moment I laid my eyes on you."

Natsu chose this moment to look up again and Gray was unable to look away and hide his face. He was sure his cheeks were purple and tears were streaming down his face. He bit his lip in order to stop the flow of tears but if anything, he even made it worse. Natsu regarded him with a fond smile before he continued.

"That was when I decided I'd behave nicer towards you. And I did, the following days we didn't fight at all. On the fourth day after that, there was this... _incident..._ It was the anniversary of the death of... well... you know... You were so sad and you ran away and I just couldn't stand to see you sad, so I followed you. You know... what happened then... And I felt so... so stupid, it hurt so much, knowing you are sad and I couldn't help you. I may even have made it worse, and I blamed myself for my uselessness and I despised myself and my _stupid_ feelings for you... And then... I did something stupid I should have never done... I subconsciously used magic to lock my feelings for you away, to forget the memories of what I felt for you... I never wanted something like that to happen again and at the time I thought everything would be better if I didn't love you. I had used so much magic that I fainted right then and there...

"And when I woke up, I didn't know what had happened. I couldn't remember what happened between you and me shortly before I fell unconscious. I didn't feel love for you any more, just deep friendship and admiration. And it felt as if there was a giant hole in my heart. Like the most important piece of my heart was missing. I was heartbroken and I didn't know _why_. I was crying myself to sleep more often than not. And there was always something about you that I couldn't put my finger on... It was torture."

Gray saw a single tear making its way down Natsu's beautiful face.

"Then, after we defeated Tartaros, we fought like we hadn't fought in ages. We really gave it all we had, until our Magic Power ran out. It was then when the imaginary box I had created to conceal my feelings for you cracked a bit. I can't really imagine how that worked, but obviously I always needed a small amount of Magic Power to keep the box intact. And during the fight, I had used some of that... Then suddenly there were again these _feelings_ , the warmth in my heart when you were around. It was too much and too sudden and I didn't know where it came from and I was again so confused. I reacted in the exact same way I did back then - with fighting... I'm so sorry for that, really. I'm just the same idiot I have always been..."

Natsu shook his head, looking honestly apologetic. Gray hesitantly opened his mouth, ready to say that he'd already forgiven Natsu, that he didn't need to apologize. But then Natsu smiled at him and Gray's breath hitched in his throat. He didn't need to say anything. Natsu already knew.

"It was again Erza who made me realize my feelings... When we played truth or dare, she just announced that I was in love when I couldn't answer her question. And then, when I ran after you, it seemed so familiar, like déjà-vu. I suddenly remembered what had happened nine years ago. I destroyed that box inside my heart and set my feelings free. It was overwhelming... I love you so much, Gray..."

Natsu's expression was so soft and warm. He looked so very vulnerable right now.

Gray was glad he was already sitting; his knees wouldn't have supported his weight any longer, had he been standing. He felt dizzy, the edges of his vision started to blur. Everything except Natsu became hazy; nothing around them mattered any more. It was only them.

"Gray... can I touch you?"

But Gray was already moving, crawling towards Natsu on all fours and then gently pushed him down so that Natsu was lying on his back. He straddled Natsu's hip and put his hands on the grassy ground on either side of Natsu's head for support.

Without breaking their eye contact, he slowly leaned down.

* * *

Natsu's breath hitched when Gray came closer and closer. He could feel Gray's warm breath on his cheeks.

He let his eyes flutter shut and pursed his lips, expecting to be kissed any second. But then he felt Gray's nose softly nudge against his. He couldn't help the desperate whimper that left his throat at the gentle touch.

After a few seconds, Gray pulled away again and Natsu opened his eyes with irritation. He was met with beautiful blue eyes so close to him and he _couldn't_ breathe.

"Natsu, relax."

He felt Gray caressing his face for a split second before he sat up again, freeing his hands from the weight of his body so that he could grasp Natsu's wrists. Just then Natsu noticed that he was really tense, his hands cramped into fists beside his body. He let Gray move them over his head, where he unclenched his fists. Gray intertwined their fingers with each other, effectively pinning Natsu's hands to the soft grass over his head.

Natsu opened his mouth to complain about the loss of control but before anything came out, soft lips touched his and suddenly everything else was irrelevant. Gray hesitantly moved his lips against Natsu's, the friction sending waves of heat and pleasure through his body. Natsu sighed contently into their kiss and happily kissed back, leaning into the touch of their lips.

After the first moments of insecurity and shyness, the kiss intensified and became sloppier when they started sucking and biting softly at each other's bottom lip. Gray had, somewhere along the line, loosened his grip on Natsu's hands and started to caress soft pink hair.

When Gray pulled away after some minutes but still felt like _not long enough,_ they gaped at each other open-mouthed, both flushed crimson and panting heavily.

"Natsu... we're... ah..." Embarrassed, Gray buried his face in the crook of Natsu's neck.

Due to their positions their crotches were pressed together and they were both rock-hard. Natsu hadn't noticed it while kissing, but now he just couldn't restrain himself any longer.

He moved his now free hands to grope Gray's ass and was immediately rewarded with a shudder that ran through Gray's whole body and resulted in their crotches being slightly rubbed against each other. They both moaned in unison.

"Nah- tsu, what-"

"Take a wild guess." And with that, he began moving his hip up and down while intensifying the grip on Gray's ass.

* * *

It was too much for him, too alluring to resist, so he went along with Natsu's actions, dry humping Natsu with so many layers of clothes between their cocks. The sensation was overwhelming and soon he was a moaning, whimpering mess and completely at Natsu's mercy.

"Gray... ahh... G- Gray, I- I can't- ahhh, I'm c- coming"

Then Natsu's body went rigid and Gray encouraged him by moving his crotch against Natsu's more violently, carefully biting his earlobe and moaning. Then Natsu was shouting his name and it was all it took to trigger the most intense orgasm he'd ever had in his life, shooting his come in his pants and not caring in the slightest, riding out the waves of pleasure by frotting against Natsu and moaning his name loudly. The knowledge that Natsu was coming undone under him, _because of him_ , spurred him on even more and prolonged his orgasm.

Completely spent, Gray collapsed on top of Natsu. He could feel the wetness in his pants spreading but right now he didn't care. He rubbed his nose along Natsu's neck and took in his scent, then buried his nose in Natsu's scarf. He sighed contently.

"Natsu... I love you... so much..."

As an answer Natsu wrapped his strong arms around his upper body and caressed his hair. Gray closed his eyes and savored every second of their closeness, every gentle touch and softly spoken word.

They would have to clean up eventually and get back to their hotel room, but for now they just wanted to cuddle a little while longer.


	8. Happy Moments

After a while of cuddling and whispered words of affection, they decided it was time to head back to their hotel. The consequences of their former actions were starting to show. Dark wet spots were forming on their trousers where their cum had soaked through the layers of fabric.

Natsu had doubted they would manage to get to their room without having people notice the embarrassing proof of their sexual inexperience. It turned out to be an unnecessary worry, as the village, including all its inhabitants, were still frozen solid when they returned. Natsu regarded Gray with a rueful glance, but Gray only shook his head. He didn't want to think about what he would have done if Natsu had rejected him. What he already _had_ done. Hell, he had frozen thousands of innocent people, stole about an hour of their living time. He wondered if that was even true, if maybe their inner clock had also stopped and their life would be prolonged for the time they had been frozen. He dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come to his mind. There was no way to ever find out the answer.

They were lucky the doors had been open when Gray cast his spell to freeze everything. As soon as they reached the inside of their hotel room, Gray dissipated all the ice at once, leaving not even a droplet of water behind. Nobody would ever know that they had been frozen at some point in their life, or so Gray hoped.

The door slammed shut and Gray was pushed back first against the nearest wall by strong arms. He gasped and Natsu took full advantage of his open mouth by sticking his hot tongue inside, kissing him fiercely. Gray was completely overwhelmed by the demanding and _hot as fuck_ kiss, heat shooting straight to his groin, making his member stand tall in a matter of seconds. He moaned into the kiss. This spurred Natsu on even more; he pushed one of his legs between Gray's, spreading his thighs. The ice mage could feel the erection of his dragon poking against his hips.

They started rubbing their clothed lengths against each other while the kiss intensified. It felt so filthy, underwear rubbing against the underside of their cocks, lubricated by their half dried cum. Their lips parted only when both of them were panting, cheeks flushed and eyes glassy with need. Gray threw his head back and let out a loud moan that was sure to be heard in the neighbor room. The next second he could feel Natsu's mouth sucking and nibbling at the crook of his neck. One of his hands went up to Natsu's soft hair to encourage his actions, while the other groped Natsu's butt with urgency.

"Do you want to do me?" Natsu teasingly breathed against Gray's sensitive skin.

Gray moaned and rubbed his crotch hard against Natsu's. This was all he needed to reach his climax. He shivered in ecstasy while shooting cum into his already drenched pants. Natsu didn't give him any time to recover before he spoke again.

"Ooohh? Looks like someone _really_ likes me talking dirty."

Gray felt his cheeks heat up. The thought of Natsu saying... _things_ he would never say aloud was one of his favorite fantasies while jacking off. Now that it had become reality, it had sent him over the edge immediately. And Natsu knew now; there was no point denying that he _loved_ Natsu talking dirty. He wanted to hide his face from the dragon slayer, but Natsu cupped his chin and made him look straight into his eyes.

"Hey, you don't need to be ashamed. I love you. I want to know everything about you. Your likes and dislikes, your every quirks, which kinks you are into... and if you have a thing for me spelling out what we're doing while we're doing it..." Gray's blush deepened and Natsu smirked. He resumed humping against Gray's thighs. "... then that's great, because I think that I like it as well... I would love to make you hard just by talking, make you beg me to fuck you or let you fuck me... ahh, oh god, just thinking that I could make you come closer by talking like this turns me on... I also want to listen to your voice... I can't wait to hear you moaning while we're having sex... hnng... Do you wanna top or bottom at our first time?"

"Uh... I- I don't really care..."

"Then I want you to top. Tell me... ahhh... what you would do to me..."

Gray hesitated. Natsu wanted him to talk dirty while humping against his thighs? Did he get off on that as well?

"Graaaay hhhnnn... C'mon, imagine you can f- fuck me. I- imagine I cleaned up my insides for you, s- so you don't need to worry about t- touching something disgusting i- in there..."

"Nothing about you is disgusting," Gray breathed. Natsu smiled at this.

Still, imagining Natsu cleaning up his bowel to make the sex as pleasurable as possible for him surprised him... He didn't really know why, but he'd never have expected Natsu to be this thoughtful.

"Imagine me lying on your bed, naked and sprawled out... What would you do?"

"I... first I would kiss you softly on your lips, then I'd s- slowly kiss my way down your body..."

He blushed. He found it embarrassing to say such things out loud. He wasn't like Natsu, who could say such dirty things as if he were talking about the weather.

"G- Gray... I want your h- hands on my ass... ahh, yes... squeeze... harder... ohh god, Gray, feels s- so good... say my name, p- please."

"Natsu. Natsu..."

The ice mage gulped. He could tell that the pink haired was really close. Gathering all his courage, he whispered "come for me, Natsu" close to the dragonslayer's ear.

"Ahh... I- I'm-"

A second later he felt Natsu's body writhing from the intensity of his climax. He didn't try to muffle his moans and Gray didn't want him to. This was pure joy, having the one he loved come undone in his arms, moaning his name or at least parts of it. When Natsu stilled and tried to calm his breathing, the ice mage felt a wave of blissful exhaustion wash over him.

"Natsu... I'm so tired..."

"Yeah... me, too... it's been a long day."

Gray slid down the wall he was leaning against; his knees just wouldn't support him any longer. He buried his face in his folded arms and closed his eyes, uncaring of the sticky fluid in his pants that spread out even more due to his movements.

"'wanna sleep..."

* * *

Natsu couldn't help but smile at the behavior of his mate. He was also tired as fuck but he knew that they had made a real mess of themselves and especially their clothes, and that they needed to at least take a quick shower before going to sleep.

He leaned down and picked Gray up, carrying him princess-style to their bathroom where he tried to set him down on his feet, with the result of his knees giving in as soon as Natsu's grip loosened.

"Gray, come on, just a quick shower and then we can sleep, hm?"

"mhh... lemme sleep..."

Natsu sighed. He tentatively laid Gray down back first onto the cold floor, then worked his buttons open and peeled him out of his clothes.

Seeing the ice mage completely naked with remnants of semen drying on his stomach and hips, he felt a stab in his heart he had never felt before. It felt like longing though the object of his desire was right in front of him. It was like a sudden realization that _this_ was all he had ever wanted all this time. Knowing he was allowed to touch this beautiful boy now, that it was okay to kiss him and hold him close... it was suddenly too much. All the pain and heartache and longing - while never knowing _what exactly_ he was longing for - over the past years culminated painfully in his chest, choked him. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't move. All he was able to do was to let his tears channel their way down his face to the tip of his nose and drop onto Gray's beautiful chest.

Gray was the most important person in his life, the most important piece of his heart; he was his reason to live. He didn't know how he had ever survived a whole day without seeing his mate or how he should if it would ever happen again in the future. He was frightened by the extent of his own emotions, of how much he loved Gray Fullbuster. It felt like all his restrained feelings were exploding in his chest, now that they were set free.

His head spun and tears were streaming down his face, forming a salty pool between Gray's defined pecs. Natsu was so caught up in his own head that he didn't notice the movement of the ice mage until Gray's arms were wrapped tightly around his torso and his head was pulled in to rest in the crook of Gray's neck.

"Shhh... Geez, you start crying when you see me naked? Am I really that unattractive that you need to cry?"

"N- no, no! Th- that's not it... I just... you're so beautiful a- and I- I love you... so much, Gray... It's just h- hard to believe that y- you love me too... I mean, I _do_ believe it, I- I know it's true, b- but... you're so perfect a- and I... I don't ever want to b- be separated from you, I couldn't- I don't-... I..."

"Natsu, oh god, I was joking. Hey, calm down, please. We won't be separated, at least not as long as I still have the power to fight any threat that wants to separate us."

This didn't have the effect Gray had probably been aiming for, as Natsu's sobbing only picked up. He had long since wrapped his arms around Gray and now he desperately clung to his shoulders.

"I c- can't live wi- without you anymore, Gray, I need y- you..." his voice was barely a whisper.

The ice mage ran his hand through Natsu's hair, reveling in the soft feeling of it.

"You won't need to. I'll be by your side from now on."

"Promise?"

"Yeah Natsu, I promise. I love you."

He finally calmed down to the point where only stray tears rolled down his cheeks and his breathing evened out. He unclenched his grasp on Gray's shoulders and brought a small distance between them so he could look his mate in the eyes. Their eyes were full of love and affection. They slowly leaned in and when their lips met, it was a sweet and affectionate kiss.

Gray helped Natsu with undressing and they washed each other in the shower while gently exploring each other's body in a way they hadn't been allowed to before. They didn't share a word while showering. They didn't need to. Their bodies were communicating in a way that didn't need vocal expression.

When they were finally in bed, wrapped up in each other's arms, they were more at peace than they had ever been in their entire life.


	9. Disco

**Warning: Drug abuse ahead!**

* * *

The next morning Gray woke up to a wonderful wet feeling around his cock. He moaned, still half asleep, at how good that felt. He opened his eyes a slit and saw Natsu's lips curled around his length, slowly moving up and down. Had he taken off his clothes before sleeping? Had he even put on some after showering? He didn't remember, but _god,_ he couldn't care less.

"Nah- Natsu... G- good morning."

His penis was released with a wet _plop._ "Good morning, ice princess. Sorry, did I wake you up?" He winked and Gray blushed.

"Hmm. I like being woken up like that..."

"Yeah?" Natsu brushed his tongue over the slit and then slowly circled it around his tip. Gray felt like he was ready to burst and couldn't help but wonder how long Natsu was already doing this to him. He had woken up from a wet dream just to find himself in a similar situation in the waking world.

"You were making such sexy noises while sleeping, you have no idea," Natsu smirked. Then he delved in again, taking Gray in his hot mouth and moving up and down agonizingly slowly.

"Haaah... g- god, you're so... good... ahh"

Despite the slow rhythm, Gray could feel himself getting closer rather quickly. His balls tightened and when Natsu curled his tongue around his tip every time before taking his length back in his mouth again, Gray knew he wouldn't last much longer.

"N- Natsu, I'm about to-"

Just when he thought there was no turning back anymore, Natsu stopped his action. He slid his index finger and middle finger gently down on either side of Gray's cock, effectively forcing his balls away from his pelvis and thus preventing Gray from coming. The ice mage let out a whimper. Natsu curled his fingers around the base of Gray's sack to keep his testicles caught on the outside. He was being careful not to hurt Gray.

"N- no... please... I was so close..." Gray's mind was completely fogged by now.

Natsu took his mouth off Gray's penis and leaned up to steal a quick kiss from his lover. He bent down so that his lips were brushing Gray's ear. "You can come like this, snowflake," he whispered sensually.

Gray shuddered. Like this? How should he come like this? Was that even possible? He'd never tried; he'd just assumed that his balls needed to be curled up in his pelvis while coming. His train of thought was cut off when Natsu's lips encompassed his penis again, head bobbing quicker than before, but not allowing Gray's balls to be drawn closer to his body. After only a few moments he was on edge, feeling his release building at the base of his spine, but not releasing, just building up more and more. He was already far past the point where he would have come normally, but his orgasm would still not come. Breathless, he threw his head back, clasped the bed sheets tightly and thrust up in Natsu's mouth - he couldn't control it anymore, couldn't hold back anymore. Just when he thought he was about to explode if he didn't come right that moment, his spine arched and he came _hard_ and _much_ and _long._ The waves of pleasure didn't subside even when his load was already fully released into Natsu's mouth, rocking his body some more times before he finally stilled.

Natsu waited until Gray's body relaxed and then swallowed twice around his cock before pulling away and lying down next to a completely disheveled and panting Gray, facing him. He trailed his hand over Gray's defined abs, then up his quickly rising and lowering chest, where he put his flat hand palm-down over Gray's rapid beating heart.

"How was that?" Gray could _feel_ him smirking and turned his head to meet Natsu's gaze. His sage green eyes were shining with delight and mischief. His poor heart made a leap when their eyes met and he found that he couldn't hold Natsu's gaze any longer if he didn't want to have a heart attack. So he let his head sink back into the pillow and tried to steady his breathing.

After about a minute he found his voice again.

"You know that it was good, bastard. And I'm sorry for... losing control at the end, I hope I didn't hurt you," he said with a soft voice, his lips curling into a smile when he felt Natsu poking his side with a finger, supposedly searching for a ticklish spot. He gave up after some time and propped himself up on one elbow, his face hovering close to Gray's.

"Nah, you didn't hurt me. I was prepared for that. And come on, I want to know just _how good_ it was."

This time Gray didn't avert his gaze. Natsu's eyes were the most beautiful he'd ever seen and he could spend hours just staring into them.

"It was _mind-blowing,_ Natsu. Seriously, where did you learn that? I thought that you didn't even know what sex was a few days ago, and now you're giving me a blowjob that by far exceeds even the ones in my wildest fantasies about you..." he trailed off and blushed, embarrassed by his own straightforwardness.

"Ohhh? Interesting. Will you tell me about your fantasies some day?"

Gray snapped his fingers against Natsu's arm playfully.

"If you answer my question, maybe I will. Someday."

Natsu pouted, but the blush on his face was betraying him. Gray winked, trying to look persuasive and Natsu's expression softened. "I'll tell you later, I promise. But first..."

He grabbed Gray's wrist and guided his hand towards his crotch. Even through the layers of cloth Gray could tell that Natsu was rock-hard. His mouth watered when he thought about returning the favor.

Gray didn't waste any time; he pushed Natsu into the sheets, gave his lips a quick peck before leaning down and helping Natsu out of his trousers and pants without preamble. He took a moment to admire the sight of Natsu's hard penis, bouncing happily up and down, waiting to be touched, kissed, anything that provided friction. He decided that he would tease the dragon slayer a bit before giving him what he wanted.

Gray cupped Natsu's balls carefully and rubbed them against each other, then leaned down and trailed his tongue tentatively up and down his sack, always stopping at the base of Natsu's already leaking erection. His hands caressed Natsu's inner thighs while his lips and tongue worked his balls and the skin of his hips. He let his cheeks brush Natsu's length slightly in the process, never giving him the friction he was desperately searching for.

"Gahh... Gray... _please..._ "

Gray smiled privately and looked up at Natsu's flushed face, eyes heavy with lust.

"P- please- ahh... s- suck me. I want your mouth... on my cock, _please._ "

"Well, since you asked so nicely..."

Gray leaned down and closed his lips around the tip of Natsu's cock, already tasting pre-cum. He ran his tongue over the slit and then slid down until Natsu's length was buried as deeply inside his mouth as he could take without gagging. Just when he moved his head up again, he heard Natsu hissing and biting out a _"stop"_. He released Natsu's erection with a lewd plop and looked up at him incredulously.

"Already that close?"

"N- no, but Erza's coming here."

Gray smirked as he made a quick decision. "Then you better send her away- or keep quiet."

Natsu's eyes widened in horror as Gray leaned down and took him in his mouth again.

A second later, somebody knocked at their door. "Good morning boys. You already up?"

Gray was merciless, bobbing his head quickly up and down, not giving Natsu any time to collect his breathing. The dragon slayer was already biting his pillow in order not to moan loudly.

"Gray? Natsu? Wake up, we need to leave for work in about twenty minutes!"

Natsu cleared his throat shakily. "Y- yeah, we're up." He breathed quickly but quietly and Gray was proud of him, but he wasn't done yet. He started stimulating Natsu's balls while working his penis thoroughly.

"Can I come in-"

"NO. Ah- I mean- ahh... We're not- presentable- yet," he choked out. Then Gray felt Natsu's hand on his hair, trying half-heartedly to still him. He whispered "fuck, stop, she'll- ahhh... notice..."

However, Gray felt incredibly aroused by the thought that Erza was _listening_ and maybe even aware of what they were doing. He knew that Natsu was equally aroused by this, as his hips stuttered to meet his thrusts just slightly.

"Don't want me to see your bed-hair? Well, I've just come to ask you two if you'd like to meet with the step daughter of the lady who owns this hotel and hot spring."

Natsu bit his lip trying to stifle a moan. _So sexy when he's holding back,_ Gray thought. He noticed with a start that he was throbbing hard again, despite having come less than five minutes ago. Natsu shortened his refractory period that much, interesting. His cock was brushing slightly against Natsu's shin in time with the movements of his bobbing head.

"S- sure."

"Are you okay? You sound a bit... troubled?"

She had noticed something was off! Gray felt himself shooting even harder and he couldn't stop himself from humping against Natsu's leg, searching desperately for friction. If Natsu's cock hadn't been in his mouth to silence him, he surely would've moaned.

"N- no, I'm- f- fine."

Whispering, he added, "seriously, G- Gray, you're such- ahhh- a pervert." He wanted to retort something along the lines of 'says the one who's masturbating in bed next to his best friend', but he didn't want this to stop. He was rock-hard and he knew that Natsu liked it as well. He could see his balls tightening. Originally he had wanted to deny Natsu his orgasm in the same way he had done to him, but right now, with Erza standing just outside the door, he wanted him to come before she went away. So he let it happen and just increased his rhythm.

"Are you sure? You sound rather disturbed. Is Gray awake?"

"Y- yeah."

Gray took his own shaft in hand and pumped it viciously. He could tell that Natsu was really close and he wanted them to finish at the same time. Just then Natsu bit his hand and jerked upwards, hips stuttering, releasing his warm seed into Gray's eager mouth. Gray closed his eyes and tried to keep his mouth shut around Natsu's cock while he shot his cum onto Natsu's leg, coating it from the middle of his thigh over his knee down to his shin where Gray's cock was twitching against Natsu's skin.

Gray distantly noted that Erza was saying something about being worried and coming in to check on Natsu, so he quickly swallowed around Natsu's cock, unaware of the streak of cum that sneaked out of his mouth and slowly made its way down to his chin, before coming to an upright sitting position, still feeling weak waves of pleasure surging through his body. He managed to pull up the blanket enough to cover his and Natsu's nudity before the door was slammed open and Erza was barging in, taking in the sight of the two of them, panting and being rather close to each other, Natsu on his back and Gray sitting upright. When her eyes took in Gray's face, she staggered and flushed brightly.

"So- sorry!"

She was out the door immediately, shutting it with a loud _bang_ behind her. Even without the keen ears of a dragon slayer, Gray noticed she was running away. Perturbed and out of breath, he turned his face to Natsu, the imaginary question mark over his head so obvious that Natsu would have burst out in laughter, hadn't he been so breathless.

"There's- cum in your face... idiot..."

"Oh... Uhm... Are you... angry?"

Natsu playfully hit the back of Gray's head and smiled. "How could I possibly be angry when you just gave me my first _phenomenal_ blowjob? I've never imagined you to be this filthy. But I quite like it."

Gray was relieved. He leaned close to Natsu's face, wanting to steal a kiss, but a finger on his lips stopped him a few centimeters from his goal. "You still have cum on your face. Hold still." And with that, Natsu leaned in and trailed his tongue a few times over Gray's chin, up to the corner of his mouth and swallowed. His lips puckered up. "Ewww... yours is much tastier..."

Then he pulled Gray in and the kiss was nothing like Gray had expected it to be. Natsu kissed him slowly, thoroughly. He caressed Gray's hair with one hand and stroked his back carefully with the other. They let their tongues dance tenderly against each other's, putting all the love and affection and trust they held for each other in this kiss. When they parted, Gray lingered before Natsu's face a bit longer, looking him deeply in the eyes. "I love you, Natsu." He gave his fire mage a quick chaste kiss before getting up.

"Hey, you've made a mess on my leg and now the blanket is spoiled as well!"

Gray just shrugged. "They'll change the bed sheets while we're gone anyway."

Natsu chuckled and got out of bed as well to get ready for the day. "Well, at least now we don't need to decide whether or not we should tell the others about us."

* * *

When they met up with the rest of their team just outside the hotel, Erza blushed scarlet and avoided looking them in the eyes, while Lucy and Happy seemed to be unaware of their morning encounter, seeing as they greeted the two approaching boys happily and didn't pay special attention to Erza's behavior. She was giving them a chance to tell Lucy and Happy themselves, then.

Natsu and Gray looked at each other, their eyes silently communicating with each other's, asking whether it was okay or not to show them right this instant exactly how close they were to each other. Natsu wanted to shout it out for the whole world to hear that Gray was _his._ He didn't hesitate to nod just slightly, noting that Gray's lips quirked upwards and his eyes glistened happily at this.

Natsu reached out and took Gray's hand in his, giving it a gentle and affirmative squeeze. When he turned his head back to their friends, he saw Lucy gaping at their joined hands and Happy smiling broadly before he threw himself into Natsu's arms and shouted "I knew you'd make it! I'm so happy for you two!" Natsu hugged him back with his free arm, not wanting to let go of Gray's hand, a warm smile playing on his features.

Lucy seemed to have recovered from her shock; a smile slowly spreading on her face and her eyes were shining with joy when she made her way over to pull the three of them in a crashing hug.

Natsu was busy trying to pat Lucy on the back and at the same time trying not to choke Happy, who was unfortunately caught between his pecs and Lucy's breasts. At least they didn't press into him directly like this, he thought briefly. He didn't notice that Erza had also decided to show her affection instead of being shy about it until he felt strong arms wrapping around his shoulders from opposite of Lucy.

He didn't know how long they were just standing there, the five of them so close to each other, hugging, whispering congratulations and wishing happiness. It was sweet, having this kind of reaction from their closest friends. Maybe they should be embarrassed about a public scene like this, but Natsu didn't mind in the slightest. This was Fairy Tail for you. The happiness of one (or two in this case) was the happiness of all of them and Natsu loved them for it.

When they parted, Lucy quickly wiped away a stray tear and tried to hide the fact that her eyes were covered by a glassy haze. Happy gasped for breath as soon as he was released, then made for Natsu's head, lying down on his hair. Natsu happily glanced over to Gray, who was staring right back at him, his gaze longing and so full of love that Natsu couldn't do anything else than to pull him close and kiss him softly right then and there. Happy hadn't expected the tilt of Natsu's head and in search for something to hold on, his paws landed on Gray's hair. Gray hummed into their joined lips.

With reluctance, Natsu pulled back a bit and his eyes silently promised Gray so much more of this when they were alone again. Gray smiled warmly and then focused on Happy, who was now clinging to Natsu's hair in order to not lose balance.

"I hope you have no objections to seeing me far more often in the future."

Happy grinned. "I don't! But you better make Natsu happy, or I'll be angry!"

"No worries! I have every intention of making Natsu _very_ happy," he winked and Natsu _blushed_ and hit him on the shoulder.

"Shut up, popsicle."

Gray opened his mouth to retort something, but a flushed Erza intervened, pushing the two boys determinedly away from each other.

"Okay, that's enough, you're gonna give Lucy a heart attack if you continue this. We've got work ahead of us, let's go."

On the way into the forest, Natsu and Gray fell into their usual banter, just this time it was accompanied with private smiles and fond looks on either side.

* * *

It turned out that the stepdaughter of their employer was working in the most popular disco in town and that the old lady had asked them in the morning because her stepdaughter had begged her to arrange a meeting with the famous Fairy Tail mages.

The five of them arrived in the early evening, wondering if there would already be something going on at these hours, but when they entered, they were surprised by the number of people present.

It was a huge disco, the bar located in the centre of the big room. Around the bar was a spacious area for dancing and close to the walls there were two or three rows of small tables and even some rather large private booths. As soon as Lucy noticed that one of them was still unoccupied, she made for it without waiting for the others to follow.

Natsu felt uneasy, but couldn't quite pinpoint what made him feel this way. So he tried to settle and partake in the conversation about their current mission that had developed between the five of them.

After some minutes a beautiful brunette waitress showed up at their booth, setting down a tray with four cocktails and a small glass of water.

"You must've got the wrong table; we haven't ordered anything," Erza tried to object, but the waitress gave her a warm smile. "No, this is a welcome present for the mages of Fairy Tail. My boss prepared these cocktails for you - of course, they're for free - and a glass of water for your cat. Who of you is the ice mage?"

Gray lifted his hand and was served with a light blue cocktail with ice cubes inside. "Here you go, this is called 'Swimming Pool'; I hope you like it. Then you're the fire mage, right?" she asked in Natsu's direction. He nodded and she served him a cocktail that looked like liquid fire. At the bottom the liquid was red, at the surface it was yellow and in between the color blended into each other, the middle area a shiny orange. The only thing that didn't fit the image of liquid fire was the ice cubes inside, but oh well. Natsu was impressed by it anyway and he hoped it would taste as good as it looked.

The waitress chuckled when she noticed his interested expression. "This one is called 'Red Hot Explosion'."

"Are you the stepdaughter of the old lady who owns the Onsen in this town?" Erza wanted to know.

The waitress regarded her with an apologizing smile. "No, I'm not. She's still a bit busy, but she'll come over to introduce herself later."

Lucy got a Piña Colada and Erza a Mai Tai and then the waitress scurried off again after having wished them a nice evening and letting them know that they could call her if they wanted something else to drink or a snack.

Natsu briefly wondered why they were receiving such a special treatment but then decided it was probably because they were from a famous guild and this town didn't seem to have mages as guests that often.

They clinked glasses and spent the next half hour chit chatting and drinking their cocktails. Eventually, Erza asked Lucy if she wanted to dance with her, seeing as the music had gotten louder and louder and the dancefloor crowdier. Lucy agreed and was instantly dragged away by an already tipsy Erza.

After the two girls left, Happy was as cheery and loud as ever; he didn't realize that Natsu and Gray were exchanging longing stares and undressed each other with their eyes. It wasn't really his fault, as they hid it well – whenever Happy was looking, their expressions lit up immediately and they were laughing along with the blue Exceed and making silly jokes about their guild mates.

It wasn't until about ten minutes after the girls had vanished, that Natsu noticed something was off. He was tipsy as well, as the cocktail had been rather strong, but there was unmistakably something wrong, he could feel it. His hair stood on end and he crinkled his nose.

He sniffed once, twice, then finally noticed _what exactly_ was wrong. He nearly knocked the table over when he recognized the offensive smell in his nose, but managed to control himself with clenched teeth. Looking around the club, he saw a heavily made-up blonde girl walking towards their table. Becca, he thought sourly. What did she want here? He must have let out an unintentional snarl because Happy and Gray looked at him questioningly. He briefly nodded in the direction of the blonde woman who elegantly made her way through the dancing crowd. When she reached their table, she didn't hesitate and just sat down on the bench next to Gray where Erza had been sitting about ten minutes before. A wide grin was plastered on her face and Natsu wanted nothing more than to bury his fist in it.

"I see you accepted your welcome presents. How did you like the cocktails I made for you?" she asked with a wink in Gray's direction. Natsu clenched his fists hard under the table.

"I liked mine, it was a nice choice," Gray answered nonchalantly, his lips quirking upwards a little. Did he not notice that this woman was _flirting_ with him? And he was flirting right back, goddamn!

Happy thankfully intervened before he needed to state his opinion on his cocktail. "Why didn't I also get a cocktail, Miss?"

She blinked and focused her gaze on Happy, who was standing in the middle of the round table by now.

"Oh, what do we have here? A talking cat, how _lovely._ I was just reported that the four mages of Fairy Tail were accompanied by a cat, not that the cat could talk and would want a cocktail, too." She smiled even broader. "I'm sorry, if I'd known that, I would've prepared a special cocktail also for you, my dear."

Happy blushed. He freaking _blushed._ Oh god. Was everyone around him too stupid to notice that this woman was all fake and twisted? He wouldn't say anything, though. He remembered Gray's reaction the last time he tried to say something against _Becca._ He had been angry. _'Innocent until proven guilty,'_ he'd said. Right. Natsu didn't really want to find out what action would prove her guilty, but she was a mere human, what kind of harm could she possibly do to a Fairy Tail mage? Plus Gray had assured him that he had no interest in her whatsoever and of course he _knew_ that it was true and he did believe him, but this woman still left behind a queasy feeling in his stomach. Speaking of which, he suddenly felt a rather strong urge to go to the toilet.

He hadn't really paid attention to the chatting of Becca, Happy and Gray, but they all made happy faces and it was quite a relief that he had a valid reason to flee from them for at least a couple of minutes. But there was something he definitely needed to do before.

Natsu stood up, leaned over to Gray, and kissed him. Gray was shocked by the sudden kiss, but after some seconds he sighed and leaned into the touch. Natsu pulled back, much too quickly for his liking, but he _really_ needed to go to the toilet urgently. He regarded Gray with a fond smile and saw him smiling back before he rushed off to the toilets.

When he made his way back to their table a few minutes later, he could spot neither Gray nor Becca. The dancing crowd was blocking his vision and his head felt as if it were swimming, so maybe he just imagined it. Still, he felt dread spread throughout his body.

The closer he got, the more panicked he got. Becca and Gray had vanished and Happy was lying sprawled out on the table – sleeping. Natsu shook him harshly. He didn't have time for Happy and his weird sleeping habits right now.

"Happy. Happy. Happy! HAPPY!" The Exceed didn't wake up, no matter what. Natsu knew that he was a tight sleeper, but this? This wasn't a normal sleep. Angry tears stung in his eyes and Natsu picked Happy up, holding him like an infant; he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. He picked up Gray's scent immediately and followed it as fast as he could. The trace led him across the disco, to rooms that were clearly only for staff members. He passed two dressing rooms, a small kitchen, and a closed door with the label "broom closet" and then the trace ended abruptly. He was at the end of the corridor and there was just a wall. The light was dull and the wallpaper crumbled. This place was not taken care of like the rest of the backstage area. Without hesitating, Natsu took a small run-up and just crashed shoulder first into the wall that was marking the end of the corridor, taking care to not hurt Happy in the process.

The so-called wall wasn't very thick or stable. The secret wooden door gave way to Natsu's assault quickly and revealed a steep staircase that led down to a dark room without windows. From what Natsu could make out in the faint light that was shining from the corridor above, the floor was tarred and the walls tiled, some of the tiles already breaking apart. Natsu was about to light a flame to be able to see better when he heard a switch being flipped and suddenly lights went on.

Gray was leaning against the wall, unconscious and his wrists caught in heavy metal cuffs that were chained to the wall above his head. Next to him stood Becca, her arms folded before her chest and her face an ugly grimace of mischief. Natsu laid Happy carefully down on the floor and then his brain went offline. Flames were spouting from his body and he launched himself toward Becca, ready to break some of her bones, maybe her nose, anything to wipe that ugly grin off her face and to show her exactly who she had made an enemy of.

After a few meters, he was abruptly stopped by an invisible wall and his flames dissipated within the blink of an eye. He looked up with disdain clearly written all over his face and was met with an even broader smile from this hateful woman. Then she broke out in insane laughter.

"You didn't know I was a mage as well? Well, I guess you can't smell or feel magic that disables other's magic, huh? Ohhhh, don't look at me like that, poor little boy. I made you a cage, aren't you happy? It's a bubble, you can move freely over there in a ten-meter diameter. No magic can pass these walls, which means also any mage can't pass them."

Natsu gritted his teeth. He stretched out his hand and was met with a sharp pain that felt like an electric shock where he touched the barrier. He quickly wrapped his muffler around Happy to protect him and created a huge fire, one that should have burned everything in the room to ashes but was contained by the invisible barrier, that was indeed the shape of a giant bubble, with no weak spots, no holes whatsoever. He dissipated the flames.

"What are you planning, you ugly bitch?"

"Oh my, such dirty words." She clicked her tongue. "Didn't your mother teach you how to behave? Ah, you didn't have a mother, right."

Her facial expression became angry. "Natsu Dragneel." She spat his name out like venom.

"You want to know what I'm planning, huh? Well, originally I was planning on torturing your guild mates a bit, but you just gave me a _much better_ idea." She grinned.

"That would be?"

"I didn't know that you're so _close_ to this sexy ice mage. That's lovely, isn't it? It's fresh, right? Have you had sex yet?"

Natsu felt his face heat up and growled. "That's none of your business."

"Oh, so you haven't, isn't that nice! We have all kinds of drugs here, some will make you need to pee really badly after a while," she winked, "some will make you unconscious. And there's also a drug that'll make the one who took it _horny as hell,_ so horny that he'll try to fuck whoever or whatever's next to him. Wanna guess which drug I gave him after he fell unconscious and what I'll do to him after he wakes up?"

Natsu glowered at Becca.

"Over my dead body."

She threw her head back and laughed. "Yeah? Well, what're you gonna do about it, you poor boy? You're trapped. You have a seat in the front row, though. Aren't you happy? Aww, that sour face won't change anything, my dear. Once he wakes up, there'll be nothing but sex on his mind."

"Fuck you."

"Oh no, I plan on fucking _him,_ thanks."

"He won't want that, you're not his type."

"Well, I do have a hole or two in my body, that'll be enough to make me his type, darling."

Just when Natsu was about to open his mouth to retort, he heard Gray stir.

"How about we let him decide what he wants, hmm?"

* * *

 **Author's note: Thanks for reading and please leave a review/favorite/follow! Such things make me happy :) The next chapter is already half-written.**

 **Come find me on Tumblr, my name is "Chiyala".**


	10. Claim

Gray let out a load moan with his eyes still closed. The bulge in his trousers was unmistakable. Becca grinned one last time in Natsu's direction and then turned to Gray, who was starting to rut his hips upwards, letting out frustrated sounds when he didn't find anything besides his own pants to rub against.

"Good morning, darling."

Gray finally opened his eyes and focused them on Becca. They were heavy with lust.

"GRAY," Natsu shouted with barely restrained anger. This bitch would pay for what she'd done.

Gray turned his face to Natsu and when their eyes met, his hips bucked upwards again and a long moan escaped his parted lips.

"Nah- tsu..."

"Gray, she drugged you! Don't let that bitch get what she wants! Please, fight it, I beg you!"

"H- hel- help me-"

Becca grinned mischievously and kneeled down in front of Gray. She stretched out her hands and ran her fingers slowly over Gray's heated cheeks, ignoring the angry growl from behind her.

"Oh darling, he can't help you. I rendered him useless. Just like you. Your cuffs are magic-sealing ones, so you can't defend yourself either. You're at my mercy," she stated with a cold voice. "Fun, isn't it?"

Gray finally tore his gaze away from Natsu and eyed the woman before him instead. She had started lewdly licking at his face while caressing his cheeks with her slender fingers.

Then everything seemed to happen at once. Gray snapped his knee upwards and hit Becca hard on the underside of her jaw, causing her to bite her own tongue strong enough to draw blood. Becca screamed in agony and pulled away; Gray's body shuddered with disgust. Then a female voice called something from upstairs and a few seconds later a woman - Natsu recognized her: she was the waitress who had served them their cocktails - appeared at the landing of the stairs.

All eyes were on the waitress, who looked taken aback by the scene unfolding before her eyes, but she caught herself after some seconds.

"Becca, the two female mages regained consciousness about a minute ago. They're causing a ruckus up there, demanding somebody tell them where their friends are. I thought you'd take care of all of them; at least that's what you said," she demanded, not showing any sign of consideration for the pained whine and the blood dripping from Becca's mouth.

Becca winced but took a deep breath and answered, her tone a mixture of anger, pain, and disappointment.

"I've... changed my plan spontaneously. Why didn't you lock the two females away? Surely _somebody_ must've noticed that they passed out in the club?" She spoke with a lisp, seeing as speaking probably caused her pain now. _Good,_ Natsu thought. Though taken the previous actions of her into account, he'd have liked it much more to see her tongue truly severed from the rest of her body.

"They passed out on the toilets, both of them. Nobody noticed. And you should _tell_ us when you change your plan."

Becca grit her teeth. "I didn't have the time to tell you, I thought you lot would just this once use your brain the way it's meant to be used! Didn't you see me taking only the male one? I even left the cat there, did really nobody notice that?"

The waitress narrowed her eyes. "Was there any need to pay attention? You're the great Becca after all, you know what you're doing and nobody else can understand your actions anyway, so there's no need to tell us _stupid folks_ the circumstances!"

Her voice dripped of venom and she took several steps towards Becca, her posture showing just how much she loathed her. Becca flinched and tried to bring more distance between them by crawling away, but once her back hit the wall, the waitress towered over her, her clenched fists pushed into either side of her waist.

"Don't think that just because you're the daughter of the two most powerful people in this town and our boss that you can do whatever you want! You promised to never harm anybody and now look at those two! I always knew one day you'd stop playing by the rules!"

"Talking about my parents, huh? Did you know that my father's no longer alive? And did you know that this pink haired mage over there killed him?" She nodded her head towards Natsu.

"What! I didn't kill your father! I don't even know who your father _is_."

"Did you forget Jackal? The explosion mage? The one you killed?"

Of course Natsu remembered him. But he hadn't killed him. Probably she hadn't heard of his revival and his battle with Lucy. How, he had no idea. But he wasn't going to mention that and put the blame on Lucy. He growled. "He killed himself after I defeated him! He tried to make the whole town and all its inhabitants explode! If it wasn't for this courageous cat here-" he made a gesture towards the still unconscious Happy- "there would've been many, many more dead people than just your father!"

The waitress looked briefly to Natsu, then back at Becca. "Damn right, Becca. He wasn't a good man and you know it. Powerful, but evil. He deserved to die."

"This fire bastard deserves to die as well! He should've died with him! He can be happy that I didn't kill him yet," she spat out. A shadow crossed her face and her expression changed from angry to defeated. "Go away, Jessy. There's nothing you can do to help them." Becca's voice wasn't steadfast any longer; it sounded pathetic and broken. Jessy's words had truly hurt her, Natsu noticed. Maybe she had hoped Jessy would be her accomplice.

"Oh, you bet," Jessy spat out and kicked Becca in the face, causing her to whine, slide off the wall and collapse on the floor.

Jessy whirled around and took in the sight of Gray, whose face and neck were flushed. A thin layer of sweat covered his temples and he panted. Natsu didn't know exactly how strong the drugs were, but considering how Gray had behaved shortly after waking up, it had to have been strong. He had neither moved his hips since kicking Becca nor moaned or showed any sign of arousal and the pain in his eyes was obvious. He was struggling very hard and Natsu was proud of him. If this bitch tried to do as much as touch him, he was going to take vengeance. Hell, she already had _licked him_. His level of anger rose dangerously.

Jessy turned towards Natsu.

"Do you know what exactly she was planning?"

Natsu had a hard time keeping his anger in check, trying to suppress entering Dragon Force. It took him a few seconds until he registered that the question was directed at him and that it was expected he provide an answer.

"Rape," he managed to choke out and a new, stronger wave of anger rolled through him like liquid fire, claiming control over his body. He saw scales forming on his forearms and felt strong magic pulse through his body, making him feel light-headed and positively drunk on power.

He didn't notice that Becca had gotten back to her feet or that she was closing in on Jessy. Only when Becca kicked her in her back and Jessy stumbled forward did he notice what was going on. His transformation was now complete; his focus was sharp and his senses even sharper than they usually were. His sharp canines were aching.

Jessy regained balance immediately and turned around, taking up a professional looking fighting stance. She didn't hesitate; she shot forward in one swift motion and landed her fist in the middle of Becca's face. Natsu felt deep satisfaction at the cracking sound of her nose breaking and her body hitting the floor. This time she didn't whine. She was getting angry again, Natsu could sense it. He tried to attack her as well but the magical cage sent painful jolts of electricity through his frame where he touched the walls and he fell to the floor once more. He rammed his fist into the floor in a fit of sheer anger and frustration at not being able to join the fight and being forced to watch. The impact broke the floor under his feet and Natsu found himself standing on big tarred chunks.

Becca smiled up at Jessy despite having suffered a big blow. "You'd better leave right now or I'll-"

"You'll _what_? You have no power over me. Your magic can only hurt mages and is completely useless against us normal people."

"-hurt him," Becca finished as if Jessy hadn't spoken at all and then suddenly Natsu felt as if the air was knocked out of his lungs and his body was being compressed from the outside. The pain that came with this was overwhelming. He screamed and nearly lost consciousness, but it was over as suddenly as it had begun. He lay coiled up on the now uneven floor, his eyes glassy and his body shaking from the aftermath of the pain. When he looked up again, Jessy was on all fours, her head bent forward obediently and Becca was retreating to the back of the room.

"Stay like this, don't you dare to look up or I'll hurt him again. It could even kill him, who knows?"

Becca picked up a metal rod and strode over to Jessy.

"JESSY! WATCH OUT!" Natsu shouted, but a moment later the pain was back and he screamed even louder than the previous time because the level of pain had increased - it was unbearable, even for a Dragon Slayer.

The pain subsided again after a few seconds and when Natsu's vision cleared, Jessy was lying on the floor in a puddle of her own blood, the scent of blood so prominent in the air that it overlaid everything else for a second. Then he noticed Becca walking towards Gray with a hungry smile.

Something in Natsu short-circuited and he picked up the largest chunk of tar and threw it at her with all the strength he could muster. It hit her spine and he heard another nasty crack. She collapsed on the spot, this time really unconscious or maybe even dead - Natsu didn't give a damn right this instant.

The only two things on his mind right now were Jessy, who had probably saved his life by possibly sacrificing hers, and _Gray_. He hadn't noticed that he'd started to move towards the both of them until Erza was standing right in front of him, effectively blocking his way. When exactly had she arrived? He tried to round her but she was right there again, blocking his way again. He reached for her wrist to push her aside but she was faster; his face met the floor and his arms were restrained behind his back before he even had the chance to do as much as blink.

"Calm the fuck down, Natsu! What happened here? Why are you in Dragon Force? Why are there two dead women here and why is Gray handcuffed? Explain! And quit Dragon Force!"

The only thing he could manage was a broken _"not dead"_ and the moment the words left his mouth he noticed that it was true - he could still hear the hearts of the two women beating, though Jessy's heart was weakening by the minute. She was losing too much blood and she needed help _right now_.

"Oh god! Lucy! Call a healer! Now!" Erza ordered and Natsu heard Lucy rushing up the stairs. He hadn't noticed Lucy's approach at all. Had she come with Erza?

The grip on his wrists didn't ease. "Quit Dragon Force, Natsu."

"Let go. I need to stop her blood flow _right now. Let go._ "

"I thought you were heading for Gray. You looked like you'd want to eat him alive, Natsu. I don't want you to hurt anyone. You scare me, frankly."

"I'd rather die than hurt Gray. Listen, this blonde woman is our enemy, she drugged Gray to rape him and the brunette is our friend. The blonde hit the brunette and I hit the blonde. They're both alive but the brunette needs my help _now_."

He swore to himself that if Erza didn't release him within three seconds he was going to make her release him. She wasn't as strong as him when he was in Dragon Force.

He didn't even start the mental count when she released his wrists and got off him. He quickly darted his eyes over Gray's frame to make sure he was alright - except for the obvious - and kneeled down next to Jessy. He examined the back of her head. She had a laceration somewhere in her bloody hair and he needed to find it. When he located the wound, he heated up his fingertips so he could carefully cauterize the veins.

He'd finished his job just when Lucy came back and told them that a healer would be arriving in some minutes. Jessy's life was no longer in danger now. Nothing could hold Natsu back anymore.

He slid over to Gray in a split second, uncaring of all the blood on his hands or on his clothes, and melted the chains that connected the metal cuffs to the wall. He couldn't destroy the cuffs; they'd need them again soon after all. He knew exactly where the key was, he'd heard keys clinking in Becca's pocket before. He scrambled over to her unconscious body and retrieved the key ring from her pocket. He tried out some of them, too far gone to logically think about which one would be the one that fit into the cuffs and after a few seconds he found the right one. He made a quick job of freeing Gray's wrists, and then he fused the chains together so that there were only four chain links between the handcuffs. He threw them at Erza together with the key and bellowed an order to handcuff Becca with them and then his hands were roaming over Gray's body to make sure nothing was broken.

Gray groaned and writhed under his touch and Lucy couldn't do as much as say "What's wrong with-" when Gray shouted and shivered and Natsu could smell that he was coming in his pants. He hadn't even touched anywhere near Gray's crotch. Natsu blushed furiously and hoped that Erza hadn't understood what had happened just in front of her eyes. Gray's cheeks were pink and he was panting and clawing at Natsu's shoulders like a lifeline. The ache in Natsu's canines was increasing by the second and Natsu didn't know what that meant -

But then another flash of pictures flooded his mind and made his vision black out momentarily - and he understood. His instinct of _protecting_ and _claiming_ had been triggered. He wouldn't be able to quit Dragon Force until the danger was over and he'd made Gray truly _his_. He was achingly hard in his own trousers, probably had been for quite some time already.

 _Shit,_ he needed to get out of here, and quickly. He glanced over his shoulder and found Erza and Lucy staring at him and shrieking when their eyes met his.

"N- Natsu, what's going on?" Lucy demanded with a shaky voice.

Gathering all his self-control, he pressed out a "He'll be okay, I'll take care of him" and lifted Gray up, using his body to shield his crotch from the view of the two girls. Gray's body fluids hadn't yet soaked through the fabric of his trousers, so there was nothing to see for Erza and Lucy either. He made for the stairs but Erza blocked his way again. He bared his teeth at her.

"Seriously, you look like a wild animal. How about you calm down here before you run off with Gray?"

Natsu growled, but Erza didn't back off.

"Get out of my way if you don't want me to _claim_ Gray right in front of you." Gray let out a moan and Natsu's instincts were screaming at him to look at his mate, to kiss him, to bite him, to undress him- but he managed to keep his eyes on Erza, glaring daggers at her.

Erza's face showed that she didn't understand. "What do you mean by that?"

"What I mean is-" he leaned in close to Erza's ear, but didn't lower his volume so that everyone in this room could hear him- "that I'm going to have _s e x_ with Gray. If you don't mind, would you please step aside now?"

Erza flushed brightly and was pulled away by an equally blushed Lucy before she could make any move.

Natsu was out of the building and on the way to their hotel in a flash, completely ignoring all the concerned people around them. He didn't take the usual route; instead he went for jumping over the rooftops. He figured it was the quickest way.

When Natsu was sure they were already halfway there, Gray started pulling at his collar and demanding attention.

"Natsu... please, put me down, I need- ahh- release."

"Just hold it a bit longer; I'm sure we'll reach the hotel in one minute-"

"It _hurts_ , Natsu, _please, now_."

Gray being in pain wasn't an option, so he gave in a few blocks away from their hotel. He set him down on the flat roof carefully and leaned down to devour his mouth. Gray moaned and writhed underneath him and Natsu didn't need to do more than rub his hand over Gray's crotch a few times to make to make him come for the second time since he'd been abducted. His canines really hurt while Gray was shuddering through his orgasm, but he'd spare this for later, for when they were truly having sex.

"Natsu... do you even realize how you're looking at me?" Gray asked after his breath had calmed down a bit.

Natsu tore his eyes away and quickly picked up his still shivering Gray before answering, "no idea what you're talking about."

Gray let out a small chuckle and clung to Natsu as he brought them quickly to their hotel room, ignoring the stunned expression of the woman at the reception.

Once he'd reached the bathroom, he let Gray down on the edge of the bathtub.

"Geez, Gray, you really like to come in your pants, don't you."

Gray blushed heavily and looked away, but Natsu cupped his chin and made him look into his eyes again.

"I like it. That I can make you come this easily. I really turn you on that much, huh?"

"If you keep talking like that and keep looking at me like that, I might come again just from that... Shit, Natsu, just look at your face."

He was curious, so he let go of Gray and stepped in front of the mirror. He was startled to see himself in Dragon Force, with red eyes and scales partly covering his face. It would've been gruesome to look at, if his eyes didn't have that certain expression in them. It vanished after the initial shock but he'd definitely seen it. There'd been raw desire and burning lust in his eyes.

Natsu turned back to Gray, who was still sitting motionless on the bathtub, watching Natsu intently. With a few quick steps, he was in front of Gray again. He leaned down and nibbled at Gray's earlobe while whispering, "Let's get you out of these clothes."

Gray shivered and moaned at that, but complied eagerly. He stood up and helped Natsu undress with undressing him. When he stepped out of his drenched pants and saw the mess he'd made of himself, he blushed even darker.

Natsu was magically drawn to the smell of his release and before he noticed what he was about to do, his nose was already only half a centimeter away from Gray's erect penis. Damn, just how short could his refractory period possibly be? Was it because of the drugs? Probably. Natsu stuck out his tongue and licked a small stripe across Gray's frenulum and then pulled back again.

"You should probably take a shower," he winked.

"Sh- shower, yes. Okay." Gray stumbled towards the shower and clumsily let himself into the shower cabin. A second later the water was turned on.

Natsu looked down at himself. He'd probably been hard since he'd entered Dragon Force even if he hadn't paid it any attention at the beginning. It was starting to hurt and demand attention rather badly. But he'd sworn to himself he'd do this properly, with proper cleaning and preparation beforehand. His body's needs would have to step back a little while longer.

Natsu shed his clothes in a matter of seconds and entered the bathtub. He hadn't really thought about how he was going to clean his insides but he knew that he had to - there was no way he was going to let Gray stick his fingers or his dick inside his dirty hole. He got on all fours inside the bathtub and stuck his butt up, then took the shower head and turned the water on. He fumbled awkwardly with it until the jet of water was directed at his ass, but then noticed that he'd need to do much more than that to get the water inside. So he supported the weight of his torso on his shoulders and brought the other hand to his ass and pulled his cheeks a bit apart. The feeling of water hitting his entrance was odd, but he guessed he'd get used to it, so he just waited for some seconds.

Natsu jumped when Gray spoke again, "Need help with that?" He was leaning seductively against the sink and his fingers were lewdly playing with a small ice cube. His hair was damp and sticking out in all directions and his face was _pure sex_. Natsu choked on his saliva and dropped the shower head, then shrieked when he heard it hit the bathtub and fumbled to pick it up again. He could feel the burning heat in his cheeks. Gray let out a chuckle. He took the shower head from Natsu's hands and turned off the water. "I have a much better idea."

Natsu gulped; it was all he could do not to moan at the prospect of an ice cube inside his ass.

"Let's move to the bed for that." Natsu turned his head sharply and wanted to protest, but Gray silenced him with a kiss. "Come on, you can go to the toilet for flushing it. It's not like your ass will be dripping all over the place."

Natsu gave in and so they found themselves lying entangled and kissing on the bed not a minute later. Gray was very gentle and considerate. He shifted their positions so that Natsu was lying on him, then created a very small ice cube and slid it slowly down Natsu's back while pressing butterfly kisses along his jaw and on his cheeks. When the ice cube had slipped slightly between Natsu's ass cheeks, he let out a moan and ground his hips against Gray's.

Gray smirked at Natsu's reaction and brushed feather **-** light kisses against Natsu's open lips while sliding the ice cube further down. It was hard to proceed as Natsu's butt cheeks were pressed firmly against each other, so he spread Natsu's legs wide with his knees. When the ice cube reached Natsu's puckered hole, Gray let it slide around the opening a few times before trying to push it inside gently. The diameter of his roundish ice cube was only half a centimeter at most, but still Natsu cursed when it was pushed inside.

"Shh, relax. Should I make smaller ones?"

Natsu looked him in the eyes and asked, "what makes you think I'm cursing because of pain?" Then he smiled a perverted smile. His tongue darted out and directly into Gray's mouth to have a heated tongue-battle. It lasted only seconds before Natsu pulled back again and rolled his hips suggestively against Gray's. "More. I want so much more."

Gray nearly choked on his breath. Natsu in Dragon Force and with that expression on his face was by far sexier than his poor heart could take. He didn't hesitate to obey and produced some more round ice cubes. He wasn't sure if Natsu would actually notice if he put the half of them inside his own ass, since he couldn't see what he was doing but who knew what his keen ears were able to hear? He'd try anyway, maybe he could surprise Natsu. He'd said that he would let Gray be the one to penetrate him first, but right now Gray was pretty sure Natsu would like either way, seeing how turned on he was. Gray rather hoped it was going to be a long night and they would do it more often than just once, so they could switch and see what they liked better.

Natsu shivered as more and more ice cubes entered his ass and so did he - this feeling couldn't compare to anything he'd ever felt before. The more ice cubes were inside him, the more they moved against each other and the more often they brushed against his prostate. Gray only barely managed to hold back his moans, while Natsu didn't hesitate to express his excitement verbally. Their cocks were sliding together just slightly and Gray thought he was going to come like this if they didn't stop it soon.

"Ah- shit, Gray, it's so cold, but it feels so damn good- hahh- oh shit, G- Gray, I'll c- come, _oh god_ -" and then he let out a long moan, shuddering violently through his orgasm. Gray felt warm cum hit his pecs and couldn't help but lift Natsu's body up a bit, look down and watch Natsu's cock shoot out his seed. The pressure with which the transparent fluid was shot out was high and so some of it landed on Gray's face, across his cheeks and a droplet on his lips.

When Natsu's orgasm wore out and he saw the mess he'd made on Gray's face, his eyes widened in shock. "Sorry, oh no, I'm sorry, wait here, I'll get some toilet paper for you, don't move," he stuttered and scrambled to his feet, but the movement made him hyper-aware of all the water and ice inside his lower bowel and he flinched and walked a bit awkwardly towards the bathroom.

Gray smiled privately and licked the droplet on his lips. Natsu closed the bathroom door and Gray could hear water being released into the toilet and then flushed and some seconds later a flushed Natsu re-emerged with a new toilet paper roll in hand. When Natsu hovered over him to wipe his face, Gray couldn't stop grinning at how considerate and cute Natsu was.

"Gray, stop smiling that pervert smile of yours, I can't wipe your face prop- mhh..." Gray had pulled him down and silenced him with a kiss. It had been meant to be a soft and sweet kiss, but Natsu kissed back with renewed passion and it soon turned into a fight between tongues and teeth until-

"Ouch! Natsu, your teeth are sharp. Can't you quit Dragon Force already?"

"Uh, I can't... Not until I've claimed you..."

"So, we need to have sex and then you'll be normal again?"

Natsu smiled. "Yes."

Gray's cock twitched at the prospect and suddenly he became aware again of the water pressing against his hole from the inside, wanting to be released. "Alright, just let me go to the toilet, to, uh, wash my face... I'll be right back."

Natsu eyed him suspiciously, but moved aside to let Gray stand up. Damn, the water inside him was really uncomfortable and every move made it only worse. He knew his movements had betrayed him already and so he looked over his shoulder to check how Natsu would react. Natsu was grinning at him and mocked, "Eager much, are we?" Gray winked and turned around again, but not without noticing the predatory sparkle in Natsu's eyes.

After closing the bathroom door, Gray sat on the toilet immediately. It nearly hurt to have that much water inside him; maybe he'd overdone it a bit. He tried to release it slowly - but of course that didn't work.

Once finished, he was glad to have done this before letting Natsu touch him there. True to his word, he also washed his face before going back to bed with Natsu, who welcomed him with open arms and a kiss on his forehead.

"Natsu... please, I want you inside me first."

"Anything for you, _my_ _snowflake_."

Natsu didn't waste any time and turned Gray so that he was lying on his back.

"Spread your legs," he ordered while he reached for the bottle of lube and massage oil on his nightstand.

"So... did you actually buy that bottle with this in mind?"

"Who knows... maybe?"

"When I saw it on your nightstand for the first time, I thought..." he trailed off and blushed.

Natsu had his fingers coated with the lube already and circled one finger around Gray's opening. "When I bought that, I didn't exactly know what 'lube' was used for. I just wanted to give you a massage, that's all. But it does come in handy now," he added and smirked.

Natsu was clearly ready to drop the topic but his statement only stirred more questions that Gray wanted to have answers to. Talking about this wasn't exactly a turn-off (it was quite the opposite - for Gray at least) so surely they could talk and prepare for sex at the same time?

Natsu pushed a single finger inside and Gray moaned. "Wh- when did you find out then? I mean- at some point you did find out what sex was about... When was that?"

The finger inside him moved around a bit before finding his prostate, but when he'd found it, the reaction was overwhelming. Gray's spine arched and he let out a sound that sounded embarrassingly close to a whimper.

"Are you sure you want to talk about that now?"

"Ye- yes! Don't stop what you're doing, just- ahh, yes there- just answer, please."

"Alright. It was on the same evening. After you brushed your teeth... I was- uh... actually, I wasn't sleeping when you came back to bed... I was just... pretending to be asleep, and then you whispered your confession into my ear... and well, then pictures kind of flooded my mind and I knew then."

Gray couldn't decide if he wanted to kick Natsu for this or curl up and die or just be thankful that it happened like this. Natsu disrupted his thoughts by pushing a second slick finger inside Gray's ass.

"Ah, Natsu, god, _yes._ And then you made me wait two more days before confessing!"

"Yeah, well, I really tried to confess, but, uh, you know..."

Gray would've smiled if there hadn't been a ripple of intense pleasure rolling through his body right that moment.

"Ahh- You're right, we shouldn't- ahh- talk now, _oh god, do that again..._ "

He was rewarded with another brush of fingers against his prostate. He threw his head back and moaned shamelessly.

"More, please. I want you- ah- inside me already," Gray demanded.

"Not yet, I don't want to hurt you."

"Hu- hurry."

So Natsu did. He pushed a third finger inside and spread them wide. He stimulated Gray's prostate with nearly every movement and soon Gray wasn't able to form any coherent thought anymore.

When Natsu pulled his fingers out completely, he nearly complained, but then he felt the slick head of Natsu's cock press against his entrance, and his complaint turned into a moan.

"Are you ready?"

Instead of answering, Gray pulled Natsu's hips in with his heels. They moaned in unison as Natsu slipped inside easily and Gray only stopped pulling when Natsu's cock was buried inside him up to the hilt. It didn't hurt in the slightest. Natsu had really done a damn good job with preparing him.

"I'm inside you."

"I can feel that."

"We're not virgins anymore."

"Yes, yes, I know. Now would you please _move_?" To emphasize his demand, he rolled his hips and brought his arms around Natsu's torso to pull him down into a hug.

"I'm going to mark you while sex. I hope that's okay for you?"

"God, Natsu, as long as you're not planning on cutting my penis off, I'm sure I don't mind and now _would you please start moving?_ "

Natsu smiled wickedly and pressed a quick kiss on Gray's mouth. "I did warn you. Don't complain later." And with that, he started moving.

Gray hadn't been so sure whether he'd like bottoming. Now he could safely say he _loved_ it and if Natsu decided that he liked topping more, then Gray would gladly comply. Most of Natsu's thrusts hit his prostate and it felt simply _wonderful_.

No matter how much his body's instincts wanted Gray to close his eyes and simply enjoy this feeling, Gray wouldn't take his eyes off his soul mate. This felt like much more than just two bodies joining for sexual pleasure. This felt like their very souls were fusing with each other's irrevocably and forming a new, complete one. They didn't break eye contact when both were panting and moaning uncontrollably, or when Gray shouted because Natsu had brushed his prostate in _that way_ that made him see stars.

Gray was completely overwhelmed by the pleasure that Natsu brought him only by his penis moving inside his ass. He was sure he'd come soon with his penis untouched and then suddenly Natsu hit his sweet spot again that made his vision blacken out for a second. He managed to blurt out, "Now, ah, _now_ -" and then his muscles contracted and the most powerful orgasm of his life rocked his body. He distantly noticed that sharp teeth were rammed into the crook of his neck, but instead of hurting him, they brought him even more pleasure and prolonged his orgasm.

When the last aftershocks of his orgasm ebbed out, he felt Natsu collapse against him.

"What... the hell... was _that_?"

"That was sex."

Gray hit the back of Natsu's head playfully. "This wasn't just sex. It was more. It felt like more... Or... is this what sex always feels like?"

"Who knows? It was just our first time." He winked. "But you're right... it _was_ more. I claimed you. The biting marks on your neck are not going to vanish."

"Y- you... marked me... _permanently_?" Gray blushed furiously.

"Uh, yeah. Oh god, you don't want this, do you? There's still a way to-"

"I love it. I love that people can see that we belong together, I'm proud of it. Though I'd wish I could mark you as well."

"Actually... you have to, because if you don't, then yours will vanish in twenty-four hours."

"How? I don't have such fangs."

"Oh, really?" Natsu smirked. Gray's eyes widened and he brushed the underside of his teeth with his tongue.

This couldn't be true. He had sharp canines now just like Natsu. He would be able to mark him in the same way Natsu had marked him.

 _Claim him, mark him, make him mine. Hell yes!_

He opened his mouth wide and aimed for Natsu's neck.

"Whoa, hey, stop. It has to be done while the one who's bitten has an orgasm." He looked at Gray's exposed teeth and added with a sly smirk, "I mean, you could still bite me now if you're into that. You look so sexy with them."

Unrestrained desire flooded Gray's whole being.

"I'm going to make you _scream_."


	11. Mirror

"I'm going to make you _scream_."

The words were spoken directly into Natsu's ear, causing a shiver to run through his body, and despite having climaxed only a few minutes ago, he felt his cock already filling again. Only when Gray's muscles clenched around his growing erection was he reminded of the fact that he hadn't pulled out yet. Gray hummed in approval, trailing his fingers downwards over the expanse of Natsu's back until he reached the cleft of his ass cheeks. Then the touch was gone, but before Natsu could state his dissatisfaction, Gray's hands were on his ass, groping tightly, turning his complaint into a moan. In his current position, he couldn't really see Gray's face, but the heated growl spoke volumes about his state of arousal. As if to prove his point, Natsu felt Gray's cock that was trapped between their bodies slowly come to life again.

As much as Natsu wanted to stay buried inside Gray and just go for a second round, he was sure that Gray wanted to be the one to penetrate him this time. He moved his hips backward, intending to pull out, but Gray's grip on his ass tightened and kept him in place.

"Don't. Not yet."

"I thought you'd like to be in control now?"

Gray's smirk was palpable. "Just because you're inside me doesn't mean you're the one in control. I want you to fuck me a bit more. Start slowly." Gray's voice was dark and heavy with lust, and desire surged through Natsu's veins like liquid fire.

He didn't need to be told twice. Natsu moved his hips backward until only his tip was inside, then slid back in as slowly as his self-control allowed him to. It felt incredibly filthy. The generous amount of lube he had applied to his cock and fingers had mingled with his cum, making Gray's insides extremely slippery. Natsu had only been able to smell the scent of Gray's release until that moment, which alone was already a huge turn-on, but with his cock nearly all the way out the scent of his own semen mixed with it, and it was an intoxicating mixture of scents.

Natsu didn't even notice that his hips had sped up on their own volition until Gray dug his heels harshly into his ass cheeks, forcing him to still. "Sh- shit, Natsu. Fucking me like a rabbit isn't what I meant by 'slowly'."

"Sorry. I... I lost control."

"I noticed that much. Calm down a bit, yeah? I want to savor this. Look at me."

Natsu obediently lifted his head from where it was still resting in the crook of Gray's neck, and his mind cleared tangibly once the sweet scent of his mate's arousal and sweat had the chance to mix with the air before it entered his nose. However, looking into Gray's face clouded with lust nearly destroyed that effect again, but then the corner of Gray's lips pulled upwards in a genuine smile. Natsu found himself mirroring the expression. Hands pulled him down gently but determinedly, their lips meeting in a passionate kiss.

While their tongues slid playfully against each other's, Natsu picked up the movement of his hips. This time, he really went slowly, always pulling out until the tight muscle ring was squeezing the sensitive spot at the underside of his glans, then pushing back in all the way, aiming to hit Gray's prostate with every thrust. Their kiss grew more and more heated, but Natsu didn't increase his pace. Gray was in charge now, and if he didn't tell him to speed up, then he wouldn't, even if it was getting increasingly difficult not to. He didn't need to wait long for the order to come.

Gray broke their kiss after a minute or so, his hands clutching at Natsu's shoulder blades desperately. "Faster. But stop before you come."

Now that was a difficult task. Natsu's mind was so fogged by lust that he wasn't sure if he'd be able to stop once he noticed his orgasm was about to hit him. His hips were going faster now. Gray's legs were wrapped tightly around his ass, making the momentum even more powerful by pulling him back in on every thrust. Their restrained whimpers soon turned into loud, unrestrained moans. Natsu's elbows eventually gave out, and his upper body collapsed on Gray's again, leaving his head buried in the crook of Gray's neck yet again. It was too much, the intense scent flooding his nose and the stimulation of his cock, plus the desperate sounds and twitches of his mate - he stilled with his shaft buried to the hilt inside Gray. His dick was throbbing and jerking, desperately wanting to be moved in and out just one or two more times, but Natsu controlled his desire with great effort. His breaths were chocked, his pulse far beyond normal, and his instincts unsatisfied, screaming at him to just _finish_.

When Natsu had finally calmed to the point where he was sure that he wouldn't climax if he pulled out, he hoisted his upper body to look Gray into the eyes. Only then did he register Gray's hands caressing his back soothingly. He must have worn a pained expression, because one of Gray's hands came around to stroke his cheek, and Gray's lips curled into a sympathetic but thankful smile.

"Good dragon. Now I want you to clean yourself up. Bring some toilet paper so I can wipe my chest, and then we'll continue."

Natsu wanted to complain, but as soon as his lips parted, Gray pressed his pointer finger over them to hush him.

"It'll be worth it, believe me."

About ten minutes later, Natsu and Gray were clean and back on their bed. Natsu was on all fours, his ass up in the air, and Gray was kneeling behind him, lube in one hand, and one finger of the other already coated in lube, ready to be pushed inside Natsu's exposed entrance.

The way Natsu strained his neck just to be able to see what Gray was doing behind him looked painful. So Gray decided to put an end to it. "Close your eyes."

He earned a pleading look, and shot a determined one back. Natsu finally sighed and closed his eyes, relaxing his neck and easing his head into a much more comfortable position.

When an idea suddenly came to Gray's mind, he couldn't help but smirk to himself. His eyes darted to the wardrobe and the full-length mirror, examining it briefly. His smirk intensified, and then he focused his gaze back on Natsu's ass again. _Oh yes, I'm definitely going to make it worthwhile._

When a low whine escaped Natsu's throat, Gray's attention immediately focused on him again. He'd accidentally brushed his finger over the inside of Natsu's thigh. So his mate was sensitive there, huh? To test this theory, he purposely brushed the back of his hand over the same spot, caressing the skin in circles. Natsu shuddered, and Gray observed his half hard penis harden until it was completely stiff, bobbing seductively between Natsu's spread legs. Gray's mouth watered. He nearly turned Natsu over to be able to put his mouth on it, but he controlled the urge, instead settling for running his tongue over Natsu's testicles from behind.

Natsu let out a moan, and suddenly Gray was all too aware of the proximity of his tongue to Natsu's entrance. He couldn't stop himself, he just had to slide his tongue upwards and lick over Natsu's puckered muscle ring. He hesitated for a second, but then pushed his tongue inside. He'd expected some kind of bad taste, but since Natsu had cleaned his insides, he tasted like... _mint_? He knew that Natsu had brought mint shower gel to their mission, seeing as he always left it in the shower cabin. Had he...? _Oh, Natsu..._

"I- I hope it doesn't... taste bad?"

Gray reluctantly pulled his tongue out to be able to speak. "You're seriously asking that after going to such lengths in cleaning yourself?" Gray realized that Natsu had opened his eyes and was looking at his face upside down through his spread legs. So he raised his eyebrow even higher to prove his point.

Natsu blushed. "I mean... I hope I was able to remove all of the shower gel I used?"

Gray would have burst out in laughter if this hadn't been so extremely... _cute_. His brain wasn't able to provide him with another, probably more accurate adjective at the moment. Natsu would hardly approve of being called 'cute', so he'd better keep his thoughts to himself. His mate needed reassurance right now.

"Yes, you were indeed able to remove everything. I feel more like licking a very tasty mint candy than sticking my tongue into a place which is by nature supposed to smell and taste... not so good. I've never even expected you'd clean yourself for me like that and I'm more than happy that you're so thoughtful. So would you please relax and just enjoy it?"

Well, that had come out like more of an accusation than he'd intended to... But it seemed to have worked all the same, seeing as Natsu's eyes had softened and a genuine smile was adorning his features. Gray smiled back, and said with an authoritative tone, "Close your eyes and enjoy. Don't open them until I tell you to."

Natsu obeyed immediately. Gray couldn't help but hum in appreciation before happily going back to slowly driving Natsu mad with his tongue.

Gray supposed his tongue would never be able to reach Natsu's prostate, so he inserted the first finger after about a minute. The lube smelled pleasantly of lemongrass, so Gray hoped that the taste would be just as enjoyable. He was planning on spreading Natsu's hole first with his fingers, and then putting his tongue inside along with one finger. As soon as his pointer finger found Natsu's prostate for the first time, Natsu let out something between a gasp and a moan, along with incoherent curses. So Gray brushed his finger over the same spot a few more times, intoxicated with the sounds Natsu was making.

"S- stop!"

Gray froze in his movements, not wanting to make Natsu come just yet. He was panting heavily, a thin streak of pre-cum connecting the tip of his penis with the bed sheets. _Oh god._ If he was already that close with just one finger, then how was Gray supposed to prepare Natsu properly without making him come at least once? Because he wanted to do exactly that: denying Natsu his orgasm until he was shamelessly begging for it.

Gray knew from solo practice that an orgasm became more and more powerful the longer it was withheld. Once he'd accidentally coated his own face with his cum – naturally, his mouth had been open in a scream of pleasure, and he'd ended up swallowing his own semen. Imagining Natsu in that position... Gray quickly shook his head. Now was decidedly not the time to let his thoughts wander - not when Natsu was _right there_.

"Calmed down a bit?"

"Y- yeah. Feels so good..."

"I figured," Gray answered with a cheeky smile that Natsu would for sure hear in his voice.

The whole preparation process took longer than Gray had anticipated. Natsu's prostate was a really sensitive spot, and he needed to stop three more times to let Natsu calm down before continuing. With four fingers inside and Gray so horny that he was barely able to restrain himself any longer, he decided that he would skip the part with his tongue and a finger this time. His mind wasn't able to focus on anything else than the closeness of his achingly hard cock to Natsu's slick entrance.

"Yes, please. I'm ready... More than ready."

Had he voiced his thoughts? But then again, Natsu was able to smell quite a lot of emotions, plus his current desire must've been painfully obvious anyway.

"Don't open your eyes until I tell you to," Gray said with a shaky voice, then turned Natsu over so that he was lying on his back. In a quick motion **,** he hoisted Natsu up on his arms, walked over to the wardrobe, and carefully set him down on his feet so that he was standing in front of the mirror, facing it. Then Gray sat down on the carpet, pushing his feet between Natsu's, telling him to spread his legs a bit.

"And now... sit down, slowly."

Natsu obeyed, and Gray found his heart rate and breathing pick up more and more the closer Natsu's ass got to his lap. Halfway down Gray put his hands on either side of Natsu's hips, guiding them exactly where he wanted them to be. He didn't want to insert his cock into Natsu's ass just yet, but he was in desperate need for some kind of friction, so he made Natsu sit down on his thighs with his penis pressed into the cleft of Natsu's ass cheeks.

"G- Gray, come on... I want you inside already..."

Curious about Natsu's expression even with closed eyes, Gray looked into the mirror for the first time since he'd carried Natsu across the room - and flinched when he saw his own reflection. Although his pupils were dilated, he could clearly see that his irises were bright red, his eyes shining with raw desire. His face was partly covered with scales, and his canines looked even more dangerous than they felt.

"Are you alright? Can I open my eyes?"

"Yes, I'm alright, and yes, please open your eyes."

He didn't take his eyes off of Natsu's face. At first, Natsu was surprised by facing his own reflection, but then his gaze met Gray's in the mirror, and his eyes glazed over with lust.

"You kinky pervert," he tried to tease, but his voice was missing its usual bite, instead turning into a low growl at the end. Gray didn't miss the twitch of Natsu's cock or the droplet of pre-cum on his tip growing a bit bigger.

"Yes, and you love it."

"Damn right I do. Fuck, your face is even sexier like this."

An intense wave of arousal flooded his body, and suddenly he noticed another difference: his sense of smell was enhanced. He _smelled_ Natsu's arousal and reacted to the intense scent. He'd thought something was different since Natsu had bitten him, but hadn't been able to put a finger on it until now. It hadn't been _this_ intense before. He found himself being drawn in by the scent of his _mate_ until his nose was buried in the cook of Natsu's neck, and he was inhaling deeply. It was too much, he noticed a moment later, since the intensity of Natsu's smell made him black out for a second and left him in a dizzy state, not unlike drunk. He needed to cling to Natsu's shoulders in order not to slump down on his back.

"Careful. You're not used to this. It can be overwhelming at times."

 _Overwhelming indeed._ Gray lifted his head and slowly opened his eyes, meeting Natsu's worried stare in the mirror.

"Y'smell so good," was the only thing he could think of saying right now.

Natsu grinned at him. "I'm your mate. Of course I smell good _to you_."

"'m not gonna let anybody else smell you like this."

Natsu's grin grew even wider. "I know. I'm yours."

Something inside Gray clicked into place, and suddenly all his senses were sharp again, the drunken feeling gone. "You're mine. My mate."

Natsu's pupils dilated. Gray could smell that Natsu's desire was growing stronger by the second - as was his own. A feral growl left Gray's throat.

"Ride me."

A shiver ran through Natsu's body, and in no time at all he was atop Gray's cock, lowering his hips slowly as Gray's cock entered his ass. Both of them gaped at the mirror, watching Gray's cock disappear centimeter by centimeter.

When he was buried inside his mate to the hilt, Natsu paused and reached between his legs to rub their balls against each other's, his eyes never leaving their crotches.

Gray had to look away - he was pretty sure that otherwise the sight of his disheveled and flushed mate would have been enough to push him over the edge soon. Then Natsu started to move his hips, and Gray needed every ounce of control he had over his body not to finish on the first few thrusts. Damn, he'd wanted to make Natsu ride him for a long time, ruining his orgasms at least one or two more times before letting him come.

"Stop!" Gray clutched at Natsu's hips, making him stop his movement halfway down.

"Seems like you're hell-bent on prolonging this as much as possible, eh?"

Gray wasn't sure about what to make of Natsu's comment, since it was spoken in a neutral voice. So he opened his eyes again. Natsu's cheeks were flushed dark red, a thin sheen of sweat covering his forehead, and he was biting his lower lip. Natsu was just as far gone as himself, barely able to restrict himself.

"Is that... a bad thing?"

For a split second, Natsu's expression was confused, but then his lips curled into an eager smile.

"No, I like it. You're testing and pushing limits I didn't even know I had. It's a challenge. It's exciting."

Ah, yes. Of course. He was still the same Natsu after all. Gray found himself mirroring Natsu's expression. He braced his weight on his hands, and started rocking his hips, fucking Natsu as best as his current position allowed him to. The reaction was immediate - Natsu threw his head back, and let out a loud gasp, followed by incoherent curses. He tried meeting Gray's thrusts, but his legs started trembling, causing his motions to become uncoordinated. Natsu let out a frustrated growl when instead of pushing Gray deeper, his movements caused Gray's cock to still inside his ass.

Gray stopped his movements altogether, and pulled Natsu's ass flush against his crotch to make him stop as well. "Maybe it's better if only one of us moves for now. This probably takes a bit of practice. Leave the moving to me for a bit."

Natsu nodded all too willingly, his eyes glued to the mirror, intently watching Gray's cock disappear and reappear, his balls bobbing up and down with the movement, bumping against his own ones on the up thrust. Then suddenly a jolt of pleasure made him scream and see stars, his eyes closing on their own volition.

"Found - your - ah - prostate, fla- hnn- flame-brain."

 _Yes, indeed._ Gray was eager to hit it with every thrust from that point on, until Natsu's moans and screams of pleasure were filling the room and probably also all the adjacent rooms.

"G- Gray! Ah, I'll- c- come - soon, _oh god-_ h- hey, no, come on, don't stop now, I'm nearly there!"

"You weren't looking. Get up and put your hands on either side of the mirror. I wanna try another position."

 _That could be interesting,_ Natsu thought as he stood up and stepped closer to the mirror, a bit disappointed by the emptiness, but it didn't last long. Gray was behind him and pushing inside again in an instant. He intertwined their fingers and pressed their joined hands to the wood beside the mirror. Natsu was practically forced to look at his and Gray's face in the mirror - their flushed cheeks, glassy eyes, open mouths... He needed to admit that the sight of himself being so disheveled was a huge turn on. Not to mention what the sight of Gray in Dragon Force did to him.

Gray started moving his hips slowly, pulling out nearly all the way, then pushing back in agonizingly slowly.

"I want everybody to see my mark on you," he growled darkly into Natsu's ear. "I'll put it right under your guild mark, so just... leave your right arm where it is when you come." With that, Gray released Natsu's right hand and dropped his arm to make way for his lips, kissing the spot right beneath Natsu's guild mark.

While Gray was trailing his tongue over Natsu's upper arm, he increased his pace and momentum, pushing Natsu's hips closer and closer to the mirror until the tip of his cock brushed the cold glass, leaving a wet trace behind. Natsu couldn't take his eyes off his bouncing cock being rubbed against its own reflection.

This time **,** the orgasm hit him unexpectedly; before he even knew what was happening, he was already shouting in ecstasy, spurting his load against the mirror and his abdomen. When he felt his skin being broken by Gray's sharp canines, his vision blacked out for a moment, and his legs gave in. His mate was holding him upright by pressing his body against the mirror.

As soon as the aftershocks of his orgasm wore out, he signaled Gray that he was capable of supporting his own weight again, and then inspected the bite mark under his guild mark in the mirror. Four tiny red circles, nearly a perfect square. There was no blood - the mating marks of dragon slayers healed as soon as the canines were pulled out. It was perfect. Natsu would proudly wear it for the whole world to see, and happily explain the meaning of the mark to anybody who didn't know it yet.

A pair of cool fingers being brushed over his mating mark broke his reverie, and his eyes darted to the mirror again where they were met with an intense stare of icy blue eyes. Gray was back to normal, his canines and the scales gone, his eye color back to normal.

"We're linked now. I can... feel it, somehow," Gray stated with a slightly confused undertone.

"Yes. It's a bit strange at the beginning, but we'll get used to it. This is part of our dragon instincts. For example, we'll be able to feel when the other is in danger. But I don't need to tell you that. You already know by now, right?"

"Yeah... is this how you learned about sex? With... pictures and new information flooding your mind?"

Natsu blushed heavily. "Uh... well, yeah."

Gray raised his eyebrow amusedly. "Oh? I wonder what kind of things those were. Different sex positions? Maybe some good techniques? Or-"

"Yes, yes, and YES. Now shut up."

Gray's lips tugged into a pervy smile. "Was your mind providing you pictures of you and me in these positions?"

"N- no, they were just... two faceless men. Would you shut up already? This will be dripping on the floor soon," he said, gesturing towards his lower abdomen and the mirror, where his cum was getting dangerously close to the edge. A second later all of his cum was frozen solid, the coldness making him jump a little. He hadn't noticed that a streak of cum had made it to his balls.

Gray continued unimpressed, "Were they doing adventurous things? Like-"

 _"I know what adventurous means, for god's sake!"_ Gray wouldn't stop anytime soon if he didn't distract him somehow... _Gray hasn't come yet, has he? He's still so hard..._ Natsu probingly moved his hips back, causing Gray to choke on his breath. He'd been about to say something embarrassing, no doubt. Natsu picked up a rather quick rhythm, leaving Gray gasping and moaning. His left hand, which was still on Natsu's with their fingers intertwined, tensed and pressed Natsu's hand firmly against the wardrobe.

"Y- you don't - need to, ah, do this, I don't need to- come."

"But I want you to. I want to see your sexy face when you come."

As if on cue, Gray clutched his hand tighter, let out a very loud and long moan, and Natsu felt his insides being flooded with Gray's warm semen. A deeply satisfied feeling spread in Natsu's gut while Gray was trying to catch his breath. Seeing his mate in the throes of pleasure was surely something he'd never get enough of.

When Gray had calmed down somewhat, he released his grip on Natsu's left hand. He wrapped his arms around Natsu's chest, relaxing his head on Natsu's shoulder and inhaling his scent deeply. A soft smile settled on Natsu's features. His hands came up to clutch Gray's forearms on their own volition.

"I love you, Natsu... I've loved you for as long as I can remember... I'm so happy we finally got here."

Natsu tilted his head until it was resting against Gray's. He hummed contentedly at the warmth and happiness his mate was radiating.

"I want to cuddle you." He hadn't planned to say this out loud, but it was true all the same. He wanted nothing more than to cradle Gray in his arms, kiss him, show his _snowflake_ how much he meant to him, and never let go.

Gray gave his head a small nudge, then slowly released his embrace. Natsu was a bit worried that they would spoil the carpet if Gray just pulled out like this. What he wasn't prepared for was the icy temperature inside his ass as soon as Gray's softening penis was all the way out. He opened his mouth to complain, but when he heard a hiss behind him, his complaint died, and instead he turned around to check what the problem was. When he looked down, he noticed that Gray had frozen all of his cum - also the bit on his penis. It was kind of funny that he'd find it disturbing, though. With an amused expression, he looked back up into Gray's face.

"Don't look at me like that. I've never had ice on my dick before."

The pout on Gray's face was just too inviting to resist - Natsu leaned in for a quick peck, and without giving Gray any time to react, he hurried off to the bathroom to clean himself and get rid of all the ice on and inside his body.

A few minutes later they were lying on the bed, limbs entangled, sharing sweet kisses and affectionate whispers. Gray had never been this much at peace in his whole life. He felt complete. Laying here with his long-time rival and best friend, listening to his steady heartbeat, lazily caressing every part of Natsu's body he wanted to touch, and receiving the same treatment in return, was just too good to be true.

"It's still so hard to believe that this is really happening..." he whispered.

Natsu's hands wandered to his back, then under his armpits, tugging Gray upwards so that he was lying flush on Natsu's chest and staring right into his green eyes, which were so full of soft emotions that Gray stopped breathing for a second.

"It is real. I love you, and I'll be by your side forever from now on." Natsu's hand came up to caress his cheek. Gray was sure it was only a matter of seconds until all the emotions in his chest would try to break free, would make him tear up - but then Natsu's eyes widened and he averted his eyes to some far point in their room, holding still as if listening to something.

Gray closed his eyes and concentrated on the sounds, and he could hear it as well. Lucy and Erza were walking down the corridor, heading for their room. They'd reach their room in less than ten seconds and both of them were still naked. Thinking back, he was also pretty sure that they'd forgotten to lock the door _again_. Cursing the girls for their bad timing, he jumped off of Natsu immediately, frantically searching for his and Natsu's discarded boxers, but when he remembered that they were in the bathroom, he just went to the wardrobe, pulling out a new pair of boxers.

When his boxers were halfway up, there was a hesitant knock on the door.

"Are you two... presentable?" Erza called.

Gray didn't mind opening the door in only his boxers, but Natsu was usually completely dressed when in public. A quick look over his shoulder showed that Natsu was still struggling to get his boxers on - he had somehow managed to get entangled in his _boxers_ , and if wasn't for the two girls in front of their door who could possibly see Natsu naked if they didn't hurry, then he would've laughed. Natsu was flailing around, losing his balance, but Gray was there to catch him in the blink of an eye.

"Err... boys?"

 _Oh._ "Two minutes, please!" Gray shouted while he threw Natsu on their bed, then undressed him, arranged the pair of boxers (Natsu had managed to twist it completely), and dressed Natsu in it. Gray made for the wardrobe to take out new clothes for his clumsy mate, then dressed him quickly. Only when he was finished did he look at Natsu's face, which was flushed crimson, his eyes averted in shame. Gray crawled onto him, nudging his nose against Natsu's cheek. When Natsu refused to look him in the eyes, he craned his neck and kissed Natsu's lips, trying to convey that he needn't feel ashamed for letting himself being helped. After a few seconds, Natsu sighed and relaxed into the kiss, even bringing his arms up to wrap around Gray's torso and turning his head so that Gray could relax his neck.

"Should we maybe just come back later?"

They broke their kiss reluctantly, sighing in unison as they got up and walked over to the door. Gray was the one to open it, still only in his boxers, but the girls didn't seem too disturbed by the sight. Happy was with them, hovering over their heads and wearing an expression of remorse. All of them were studying Gray with a concerned look.

Lucy was the first one to speak. "Are you alright, Gray?"

Ah yes, of course. Natsu had told them that Becca had drugged him in order to rape him - deducing which kind of drugs she'd given him wasn't that big of a leap.

"Yeah, I'm okay."

Even though Erza's cheeks were already tinted slightly pink, she still asked, "Are you sure you don't need medical care? Because of, uh, the drugs?"

Gray felt warm arms wrapping around his waist from behind, and then Natsu's head was on his shoulder.

"We _worked them out of his system_ , right, snowflake?"

As if this statement hadn't already been humiliating enough, Natsu _licked_ his earlobe and Gray was pretty sure that the noisy exhale right next to his ear was on purpose. This called for revenge. Oh yes, he would think of some kind of _punishment_ later. But when he realized that Erza's face had taken nearly the same color as her hair, and her heartbeat was elevated and uneven, he realized this whole action hadn't been meant to embarrass him, but to fluster _Erza_. He could practically _feel_ the malicious grin on Natsu's face.

Lucy was looking in another direction, but the blush on her face was obvious. Happy looked at the two boys with a broad smile, apparently unaware of all the implications.

Erza cleared her throat, but Natsu made no move to change their current position, and Gray didn't mind. He loved that Natsu wasn't ashamed of acting like a couple in public, or at least in semi-public. The sexual implications were a little embarrassing, but if they had this kind of effect on Erza, then he was on board. Where Erza was concerned, the two of them had always been a team. When Erza noticed that they were not going to let go of each other anytime soon, she rolled her eyes and tried her best to ignore their entanglement.

"Actually we're here to inform you about our further actions. This job was a fraud set up by the blonde girl obviously called 'Becca'. The brunette girl with the name 'Jessy' told us everything after the healer had finished his job. Becca didn't try to deny anything; she was just spitting insults at us. The owner of this hot spring is Becca's step mother and she didn't know that this mission was sent only to Fairy Tail. She usually leaves all the paperwork to her stepdaughter since she's not good at it. She apologized a thousand times and said that we're actually not needed to build another hotel, and that she would just hire a normal company to get the job done. She had been dubious about Becca telling her that hiring a mage guild would be cheaper and quicker, and once we helped her with calculating, it turned out to be completely wrong anyway. But since she caused us so much trouble, she gave us a ton of money which we refused, but then she started to cry..."

Erza trailed off and blushed crimson again. Lucy sighed, patted her shoulder, and took over the explanation.

"Erza was so flustered that she apologized and promised that we would accept her money and her excuse, and that she shouldn't cry anymore. Becca and Jessy are both being accompanied to the magic council, Becca in those magic sealing handcuffs and Jessy as a witness and possible accomplice. Though it's likely that she'll be released due to her cooperation. Plus she's not a mage. The magic council would have to report her offense to the human authorities.

"The old lady told us to stay here however long we wanted, in case we still wanted to spend a nice holiday here... What do you think?"

Natsu nudged his cheek against Gray's now, the suggestion very clear. "I'd like to stay one or two days more, if that's okay for everyone?" Natsu proposed sheepishly.

"Ayeee! Can I sleep in your room then?"

Erza's blush deepened a shade and Lucy choked on her breath. Natsu smirked and took a deep breath, probably intending to say something stupid or embarrassing or both at once, so Lucy intervened quickly.

"No! Ah, I mean, we still promised to you that we'd play that game... you know? The one where the winner will get fish as a reward?"

Happy tilted his head, obviously weighing fish against his wish to sleep with Natsu again.

"Come on, let's go," Erza exclaimed, grabbed Happy with both hands, careful not to hurt him, and took off towards their room, ignoring Happy's protests. Lucy shrugged and rolled her eyes, earning a small laugh from Natsu and a smirk from Gray.

"Well... good night," Lucy said, then turned around and followed Erza.

"Good night, and thank you," Natsu shouted after her, which earned him a brief 'it's nothing' hand wave from Lucy. As soon as she was around the corner, Gray was being pulled backward into their room, the door being kicked shut.

They were back on the bed in no time, both dressed in only boxers. Natsu's fingers trailed down Gray's jaw line, then over his throat onto his chest, playing with his nipples and stroking his defined muscles.

"So... how do you feel about sex in hot water?"

Gray's breath caught in his throat. "In public?"

"Hmmm... we'll have to be careful not to be caught then..." Natsu trailed off and blushed.

 _Oh god_ , he was serious. Gray rolled over so that he was lying on top of Natsu, and then leaned down for a passionate kiss. Between kisses, he whispered, "This isn't going to get boring anytime soon, is it?"

Natsu playfully poked him in the side, then said with a smirk, "It's you and me we're talking about. _This_ is _never_ going to get anything even related to boring."

 _Ah, well, he has a point there._ How could he even get the idea that anything to do with his flame-brain could ever be boring? Gray smiled, leaning down for a kiss again, only to have his cheeks being pulled outwards and Natsu giggling at his funny face.

 _Not boring indeed_ , Gray thought when he grabbed his pillow to shove it into Natsu's face.

* * *

 **Whew, that's my first WIP (Work In Progress) finished! I enjoyed writing this so much, and I personally think my writing style has improved over the course of this work. I'm more confident in my writing now because of all the positive feedback from you!**

 **In case you're sad because this work has come to an end - don't be! I'm currently in the planning phase of a very big new Gratsu work (yes, it'll be another WIP). It's gonna have promised weekly updates (my beta contour will make sure I don't slack off xD), probably every saturday or sunday.**

 **To the anon who asked to translate this into French & to anybody else who's considering translating this: feel free to do it, but remember to credit me and link the original work, and please tell me where you uploaded the translation so that I can link/mention it in here!**

 **If you want talk to me / stay in touch with me / get notified when the first chapter of my new work is posted / etc. then I'd suggest tumblr (chiyala).**

 **Thanks for reading!**


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